What can we learn from marginal areas? What do we expect from homes? Is there a new way of conceiving social housing? What are the boundaries of the city center? Are neighborhoods islands or are they rather thematic layers? And again: how can we build a solid social infrastructure that can pervade every neighborhood? Can schools be its new foundation? 

Milan Arch Week, the event program bringing together a global audience of practitioners, researchers and curators with all the people who are part of the living and transforming city is back again for its 2023 edition.

This fifth edition – curated by Nina Bassoli, curator for Architecture, Urban Regeneration, Cities at Triennale Milano, and Matteo Ruta, professor at Politecnico di Milano, with artistic direction by Stefano Boeri – focuses on the potential of what is only seemingly laying on the margins, as epitomized by the title Around Peripheries: promoters, and locations of several events, are Triennale and Politecnico, but this year the venues are multiplying, spreading to over 40 locations generating a network across the city. 

Between June 2 and 11, more than 50 events are scheduled, and the dialogue framework formed by the talks is flanked by working forums – this year focusing on Home, School and Work – lectures, off-campus workshops and itineraries. Toshiko Mori, Domus Guest Editor for 2023 (the June issue is opening her curated series) is among the participants, together with Fosbury Architecture, Kersten Geers, Muoto, Iñaqui Carnicero, Toshiko Mori, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Sumayya Vally, bplus.xyz (b+) and Harquitectes.

As the geography of events constituting Milan Arch Week is truly vast, we have selected 5 events (+1) to represent such great diversity.

On June 6, Progetto Carcere: #01 Bollate: indizi per una trasformazione, promoted by Laboratorio Carcere of Politecnico aims through a visit to the Bollate complex to create an informal dialogue between the prison and the city.

On the discussion tables lands La condizione dei giovani collaboratori negli studi di architettura, the working session (June 8) in collaboration with ullarc - Unione lavoratrici e lavoratori in architettura (Union of Workers in Architecture) dedicated to the quest for – economically, psychologically, socially – sustainable models of carrying out the profession. 

The San Siro neighborhood is hosting the talk Embodying Peripheries. Identità, pratiche e luoghi di periferia nel sud e nord globali – curated by Politecnico di Milano and Future Histories Lab (UC Berkeley) dedicated to research experiences from different global latitudes (June 8) , and the tour/exhibition Abitare a San Siro. Architetture tra storia e memoria (June 10).

Lights on Milan (June 9), the photographic tours through southeastern Milan promoted by Scenario, start instead from Largo Isarco: places in the city which are not necessarily collectively known are explored by photographers Giovanni Galanello, Francesca Iovene, Filippo Romano, and Federico Villa as places for an intimate narration.

On June 10, Ai Lavio Condominio exhibition and talk – curated by La Rivoluzione delle Seppie – brings to via Calvi the work of Sara Ricciardi and Safa Moussadek, a workshop that has generated a happy place through creativity for boys and girls at the first reception center for migrants in Longobardi, Calabria.

June 9 will also be an opportunity for Toshiko Mori, Guest editor at Domus, to recount her experience as a global professional, between innovation and tradition, context and universality of space. 

Immagine di apertura: Lights on Milan. Foto © Filippo Romano