From October 27 to November 2, 2025, Milan will once again reflect on the future of living with Milano Arch Week, the annual event that for the past eight years has shone a spotlight on architecture and cities. Promoted by the City of Milan, Politecnico di Milano, and Triennale Milano, and curated by Nina Bassoli and Matteo Ruta, the seventh edition continues the theme of the 24th International Exhibition, titled “Inequalities and Architecture”, focusing on the inequalities that cut across contemporary cities and seeking in design new ways to build equity and community.

“For half a century, cities have been seen as ‘places of opportunity.’ In recent years, however, this trend has reversed, and they have become places where inequalities are even more pronounced,” explains Nina Bassoli, curator at Triennale Milano and of the exhibition City within the International Exhibition. Discussing disparities in Milan means doing so in a city where urban transformation is a daily reality — for better or for worse.

It is a city that, over the past ten years, has alternated between growth and exclusion, regeneration and fragility, and that has often been in the spotlight for the privatization of public spaces — from the eviction of Leoncavallo, Italy’s most famous social center, last August, to the ongoing debate over the San Siro stadium.

“It is crucial to reflect on how these denied rights are at the core of practices of reappropriation — some legal, some less so — which must be considered if we are to truly talk about architecture,” adds Bassoli, who promises that these urgent issues will have ample space during the scheduled forums.

Yet inequality is by no means a theme limited to Milan, as the International Exhibition itself makes clear — still on view for a few more days at Triennale Milano. “All cities that have transitioned from national to international relevance have gone through a similar moment of change,” comments Matteo Ruta, professor at Politecnico di Milano. That’s why one of the goals of Milano Arch Week, the curators explain, is to draw on both international experience and local energy to face ongoing transformations and propose “not necessarily solutions, but viable paths forward.”

Opening the week will be French architect and urbanist Dominique Perrault (October 27), winner of the Mies van der Rohe Award, followed by Carlo Ratti (October 29), director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab and curator of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, and Lesley Lokko (October 31), who will discuss African cities as laboratories of inclusion and change. Also participating is Emil Grip, co-founder of Limbo Accra, a collective experimenting with restoration and reuse practices in West African urban contexts.

Two installations will be hosted at Triennale Milano: one in the Voce space dedicated to music, curated by Cloe Piccoli and Carlo Antonelli (October 31–November 2), and one in the Gioco space by Bêka & Lemoine, the artist-filmmaker duo whose complete filmography was recently acquired by MoMA in New York (October 31–November 2). Each evening, film screenings will explore themes of gender, social, and economic inequality—including La Storia del Frank e della Nina by Paola Randi, set amid the contradictions of contemporary Milan.

Among forums on housing rights and book presentations—such as Fabrizio Crasso’s work on urban occupations—Triennale Milano will also host the 2025 Italian Architecture Prize, promoted by Triennale Milano and MAXXI (which hosted the ceremony last year). Now in its sixth edition, the prize will be accompanied by an exhibition of the finalists and will culminate with the announcement of the winner on October 30.

Alongside talks, meetings, and special projects involving more than 30 venues across Milan and dozens of professionals, some of the most anticipated experiences of this edition will take place outdoors: collective walks through neighborhoods, designed to observe the city we already know from new perspectives—“a way to show how architecture is a transversal discipline that shapes all our lives.”

The Romolo tour, for instance, begins at the headquarters of Progetto CMR, crosses IULM University and TheSign with its gardens, and ends at Villaggio Barona. The walk through Gallaratese and Monte Amiata will instead offer a counter-narrative of these spaces designed by Carlo Aymonino and Aldo Rossi.

Always on the move—but with a different perspective (and footwear, since hiking boots are recommended)—“Viaggio a Tahiti 2.0” revives Lucius Burckhardt’s historic walk for the 17th Triennale, departing from Bovisa. Meanwhile, RealStep and Migliore+Servetto will lead “Archigrafia Urbana”, a guided walk through the Milano Certosa District, in the city’s northwest.

And for those who prefer running to walking, designer Sarah Ackland will lead a 5-kilometer run starting from the Palazzo dell’Arte (November 2, 6:30 PM)—a performative gesture reflecting on the relationship between body, gender, and public space.

“We believe architecture must once again attract people—the city’s inhabitants—and bridge the distances, whether physical, economic, or social, between center and periphery, between those who design and those who live,” the curators conclude. “The invitation to walk, to look, to participate, is an invitation to get closer to the city—starting simply by crossing it.”

Opening image: Monte Amiata housing complex, Gallaratese district, Milan (1967-1972). Design by Carlo Aymonino and Aldo Rossi. Photo Peter Christian Riemann