Design Cities: Sonia’s Guide to Milano.
Design Cities is our new series where the Shillo team, spread right across the globe, share the spots that inspire them in the cities they call home. Independent print shops, hidden creative hubs, architecture worth the detour and the cafés where ideas get scribbled on napkins. Pin them on your maps for your next visit.
Today is Sonia Ravasi, a Shillington teacher and Shillington graduate, and the city is Milan.
ADI Design Museum
Where you can trace the DNA of Italian design through the Compasso d’Oro collection. It’s like walking through a history of how good ideas become iconic objects.
MUDEC
The Museum Of World Cultures is housed in a David Chipperfield designed building, a beautifully converted industrial space where exhibitions genuinely challenge how you think about design’s relationship to culture and place.
(and great museum branding!!!)
Pirelli HangarBicocca
A huge former locomotive factory turned into a contemporary art space featuring monumental installations. The place alone makes you reconsider what’s possible, especially with Kiefer’s permanent installation, which transforms the whole experience into something almost spiritual.
LùBar
If you’re a plant lover like me, you def need to plan a meal at LùBar! This cafe/restaurant really teaches you something about intention: how a moment of pause can be designed as carefully as an object. And it’s right outside the neoclassical Villa Reale that houses the Gallery of Modern Art.
MUBA
A children’s museum that takes play seriously. It’s so inspiring to see a space that trusts kids to think and create without lecturing them about it.
Fondazione Prada
A former distillery reimagined as this bold, uncompromising art space. Whether you’re into cinema, visual arts, philosophy or experimental installations, this museum really pushes design thinking forward.
oTTo
One of my favorite spots in Chinatown to work, recharge, and hunt for great design pieces. The cafe/bistro connects to a curated shop overflowing with art, books, ceramics, jewelry, plants, and more. The kind of space where you actually find things you didn’t know you needed. (WARNING!)
Triennale
Where creativity and culture actually meet. Beyond the design collections, there’s a garden, restaurants, spaces for art, music, and theater. It’s genuinely open to everyone and feels different every time you visit. This is 100% one of the main places where Italian design conversation happens.
Isola & Tortona
There’s sooo much to see during Milan Design Week, but I think these might be my favorite districts.
Isola, with its emerging designers and experimental work, and Tortona is where some of the biggest, most ambitious ideas happen.
Cimitero Monumentale
I know it sounds weird to consider a cemetery as a museum, but Cimitero Monumentale really is a true open-air museum, where art, history and memory intertwine. Enough to say that I was first taken here for a typography lesson! And, who knows, you could spot the tombs of some famous personalities while walking around its exceptional neo-Gothic and Renaissance architecture.
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