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Museo del 900
Milan’s newest cultural crown jewel, il Museo del Novecento, opened its doors for the first time over this week’s holiday. Within metres of the city’s flagship Palazzo Reale museum, it is a rare bright spot in the the city’s mostly unimaginative public exhibition spaces, and is at long last a Milanese institution to butt heads with the likes of Paris’ Palais de Tokyo or even New York’s New Museum.
Showcasing an innovative, constantly refreshed collection of exhibitions from what were unquestionably human history’s most radically transformative 100 years, inside are the 20th century’s (novecento in Italian) masters of fine art (with a particularly sharp focus on Futurism), its pop culture, its history and its technological breakthroughs. The museum is housed inside the spectacularly remade 1930s Palazzo Arengario, a suitable example of one of Milan’s many stern, stark Futurist structures constructed at the height of fascism. Flanking Piazza Duomo, the white marble temple is now decked out with a glass façade encasing a spiraling Smithsonianesque staircase, vivid light installations, and a bookshop. Free admission for all until the end of February.
Palazzo del Arengario, Piazza Duomo, Milano.
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