Three Design Week venues you have never seen before

To visit as it is - equilibrium flower - is to immerse oneself in one of those little pools of silence punctuating the chaotic heart of Milan, a church from the second half of the 15th century that was freed from the Baroque structures that had surrounded it (an outer church and a monastery) by a radical campaign of works almost one century ago.  Takt Project's works on display dialogue with the structures of the single nave, and the 16th-century frescoes from the Foppa school decorating the walls and vaults.

Milan's oldest cultural association, founded in 1872 to promote the study of foreign languages and cultures, has located its headquarters just a stone's throw from the Teatro alla Scala, and inside this venue the Caffè del Circolo designed by Studio Irvine for Design Week is the first step towards a complete renovation of the whole space. In fact, the Palazzo del Filologico was built in 1906 specifically for the Circolo's activities, designed by Luigi Perrone and Luigi Macchi, and has its main focus in the large reading room, the Sala Liberty, with its long balconies and the large glass roof , shaded by a wrought-iron velarium.

The Buccellati maison opens its Milanese headquarters exclusively for Design Week, in a building by Piero Portaluppi originally conceived for the Linificio e Canapificio Nazionale, on which the great architect of Villa Necchi Campiglio had returned several times, starting in 1919 and continuing in 1936 with the addition of the tall corner volume crowned by the Terrazza. A recent intervention by Park Associati has then redefined the current appearance of the complex, whose history, however, can still be read very clearly: the nearly-Déco formulations of the first intervention give way to a more modern language, to a small pearl of Italian rationalism on top of which the Galateo - A Journey into conviviality exhibition reinforces that dialogue with the city of Milan that the view from the terrace has already made unique and unexpected.