Domain: Boundary in the Architectural World: Milan, Italy

Although it has been a little while since our trip to Milan, Italy over the weekend of April 5th through April 8th, since Milan is often referred to as the fashion capital of the world I thought it only fitting that this post should arrive to my blog fashionably late. The trip to Milan was the fourth and final school organized trip from this semester and I can now say that, as a whole, I was pleased with those four trips which led our class through the most notable cities in all of Italy. Being that Milan is currently mostly centered around the fashion market, there was not as much notable architecture to see in Milan as there was present in the other three cities visited throughout the semester in my Reading Cities class, but there were many notable pieces of artwork in Milan which we were able to see such as the Last Supper painting by Leonardo da Vinci and the Rondanini Pieta by Michelangelo, his final finished work, and some relevant architectural work to see as well.

Some of the notable places we did visit include the Padiglione Arte Contemporanea, which was the first dedicated contemporary arts pavilion in all of Italy, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, which is the premier shopping district in all of Milan housing some of the most prestigious brands and restaurants Milan has to offer and is also an important connection between two of the main public spaces in Milan, Piazza del Duomo and Piazza Scala. Teatro alla Scala sits just off of Piazza Scala and is still today regarded as being one of the top theaters in the world, and the Milan Cathedral sits within Piazza del Duomo demonstrating the importance of the connection the Galleria creates between the two. On Saturday we visited the Cenacolo Vinciano, the location of the Last Supper, and the Castello Sforzesco's Ancient Art Museum which is where the Rondanini Pieta is housed. The remainder of the day Saturday was spent visiting the architecture office of one of the studio professors at Kent State Florence who works out of Milan [Professor Alberto Francini and Metrogramma] and walking around through the vast shopping district of Milan. On Sunday we visited La Triennale di Milano, a design museum in Milan currently housing an exhibition titled "The Syndrome of Influence" which focuses on the past, present and future of design in Milan and Italy. We then took the metro to see the Inter Milan soccer stadium, although we were unable to enter the stadium for a tour, and then went to visit Santa Maria Presso San Satiro, one of the premier designs completed by the Renaissance master Donato Bramante which has a phenomenal perspective painting on the back wall that manages to give the church, with merely a small niche on the back wall, the effect of having a full Greek cross plan.

As always, the photos to follow document the trip. Enjoy.