Milan Design Week is the perfect chance to step inside the city’s hidden historic palazzi

Even if you know nothing about design—even if you can’t really tell one chair from another, and by the end of the week you’ve collected more gadgets than references—there’s a good chance that at least once you’ve stepped outside—leaving your home, your office, or a taxi stuck in traffic—for a very simple reason: the palazzi. Not palazzi in the strictly Milanese sense—not the austere, continuous postwar buildings that define much of the contemporary city—but in a broader, now international sense: the palazzo as a noble, civic, urban building. A sequence of rooms, grand staircases, courtyards, frescoes, and monumental doors that open only on rare occasions. Architectures that tell the story of an earlier Milan, often surviving both World War II bombings and the radical transformations of twentieth-century rationalism.

This is where Milan Design Week finds one of its most powerful devices each year—not so much in the objects on display, but in their containers. In aristocratic residences, nineteenth-century institutional buildings, and hybrid architectures that the city has preserved and continuously reactivated. In these spaces, the Fuorisalone becomes less a dispersed exhibition for insiders and more a choreography of interiors and people moving through them. Among hidden courtyards and ornate ceilings, Domus has selected a series of addresses where contemporary design meets the city’s long historical continuity

If there is one area where the density of palazzi in Milan reaches near-critical levels, it is the historic center, between Brera and the Duomo district. Here, Design Week unfolds through concentration: a few blocks, countless entrances, and an almost labyrinthine sequence of discoveries.

At Palazzo Litta—long one of the key destinations of the week—MoscaPartners returns with one of the most dynamic projects of the year. With Metamorphosis in Motion by Lina Ghotmeh, the Baroque courtyard is transformed into a scenographic device: a giant pink labyrinth, soft and responsive, shaped by the movement of visitors. Just a short walk away, Palazzo dei Giureconsulti once again hosts Masterly – The Dutch in Milano, one of the clearest curatorial formats of the week: a strong national identity, controlled exhibition design, and standout moments such as Secrid’s installation, which reflects on the idea of the pocket as the smallest unit of contemporary identity—all within a sixteenth-century building overlooking the Duomo.

Then there is Palazzo Citterio, at the heart of the Brera Design District, which this year welcomes the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation. The program combines thematic installations, new commissions, and live events to reinterpret—and reactivate—the material and environmental heritage of the Aral Sea region and Karakalpakstan. At Palazzo Clerici, in collaboration with Poliform, the contrast is striking: the brand envisions a hidden garden, an urban forest set against the elaborate decoration of the eighteenth-century palace—one of the few places where the ceiling itself risks overshadowing any installation.

Moving towards Corso Venezia, the scale shifts: the palazzi become more monumental, more representative, more overtly theatrical. At Palazzo Donizetti, Artemest presents L’Appartamento, perhaps the most narrative-driven format of the week. Inspired by the Grand Tour, it unfolds through a sequence of rooms dedicated to Italian cultural capitals—Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Palermo—where contemporary interiors and artisanal traditions merge into fully immersive living environments.

Palazzo Serbelloni, the grand neoclassical residence along Corso Venezia, remains one of the most recognizable venues of the week. In recent years associated with Louis Vuitton’s spectacular presentations and the Objets Nomades collection, it continues to be a place where design engages with the language of staging—even if the details of this year’s edition are not yet fully defined. Also returning, though with still-evolving themes, Palazzo Bovara—an elegant neoclassical building facing Corso Venezia—hosts Elle Decor with a project focused on landscape. Less defined than in previous editions, yet still one of the most visited addresses along this monumental axis of the city. On Corso Monforte, the cloister of Palazzo Isimbardi hosts Rimadesio with Aedes Memoriae, an installation by Swiss-based Encor Studio that works through subtraction, allowing proportion and light to shape the experience.

Beyond the main routes, the map becomes less legible—and more interesting. Here, palazzi function less as icons and more as spaces to be discovered. On Via Vivaio, at the Istituto dei Ciechi di Milano, the studio Dotdotdot and Geely Auto present Anima Mundi, one of the few explicitly interactive installations this year. It uses the sequence of courtyards and porticoes to create a visitor-centered experience. Nearby, Palazzo Senato explores the language of branding. Here, Skoda commissions Ricardo Orts of Ulises Studio to design an intervention that, according to early renders, cuts through the sixteenth-century courtyard with dynamic structures and pathways, in contrast with the austere former seat of Milan’s Senate.

The Circolo Filologico Milanese remains one of the most elusive venues of the week. Despite its central location—just steps from Palazzo Clerici—it offers a quieter, more introspective atmosphere, making it one of the best places to take a break from the intensity of Design Week. Finally, Palazzo Moscova confirms how the geography of the week continues to expand. Here, glo returns for the second year with an installation by Numero Cromatico. At its center is an orange circle—a large interactive portal that visitors can engage with to alter the surrounding environment.