After the spring FAI days and the opening of the 24th Triennale, Milan is preparing for a new event to discover (or rediscover) its rich architectural and cultural heritage.
On the weekend of 17 and 18 May, the 10th edition of the Open House Milano initiative, part of the Open House Worldwide circuit active in four continents and more than 50 cities (in Italy: Rome, Naples, Turin and Milan), is back to promote the spread of architectural culture. With 540 sites open in ten years, the Milan edition celebrates its first tenth anniversary with an extraordinary edition, ranging from the city centre to the suburbs, from professional studios to art galleries, from iconic works to more or less well-known and often inaccessible buildings.
Among the many locations, we have selected 10 that everyone – not just “connoisseurs” – should know about, for an exciting dive into the history of modern and contemporary architecture of the city.
Open House Milan: 10 architectural gems to visit this weekend
From Terragni to Snøhetta, from Caccia Dominioni to Zanuso, on the weekend of May 17-18 you can discover Milan's rich architectural heritage, including iconic works and hidden gems.
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Photo Paolo Monti, Fondo Paolo Monti, Civico Archivio Fotografico di Milano, from Wikipedia
Domus 403, June 1963
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- Chiara Testoni
- 13 May 2025
- Milan, Italy

The eclectic style building, combining neo-Gothic elements with stuccoes and époque furniture and chandeliers, has undergone several transformations over the years (from the 1879 redevelopment by Giovanni Giachi, to the renovation after the war damage by Giovanni Muzio, to the recent restoration work) but remains a fascinating (and somewhat nostalgic) testimony to a bygone era.
The historic headquarters of the Corriere della Sera is an Art Nouveau building recalling the London headquarters of The Times and which has retained its original allure. Since the time of its construction, the Corriere has always had the same headquarters and a visit to its spaces is like diving into a microcosm suspended between past and present.
Casa Rustici is one of the finest examples of Italian rationalist civil architecture. The complex of seven storeys above ground, with a framed structure and externally plastered and clad in marble, is composed of two bodies joined by walkways and, on the top floor, by a “villa” occupying part of both volumes (living and sleeping areas), connecting them by a suspended bridge. Recently, a careful restoration work has brought to light materials, finishes and spatial characteristics in respect of the original spirit.
The 19-storey above-ground volume for (predominantly) residential use, as well as tertiary and services, stands perpendicular to Corso Sempione for a total height of about 64 metres and, with its reinforced concrete frame structure and clear ceramic fronts, flat roof and deep loggias, is a fine example of rationalist architecture. On the tenth level, the planned open space occupied by a roof garden and communal areas, probably inspired by Le Corbusier's work, was replaced during construction by eight flats.
The Palazzina with garden in Piazza Carbonari 2, “crème caramel” in colour (as the architect declared), poetically reinterprets the urban apartment block typology. The building is a shiny volume without reliefs on the continuous surface clad in ceramic tiles and punctuated by flush windows of various sizes. The flat on the first floor, recently renovated by Tenet Arch with Carlotta Garavaglia, hosts Francesca Iovene's private exhibition dedicated to Luigi Caccia Dominioni's housing projects.
The piezometric tower located near Porta Garibaldi Station was built in 1964 to supply water to the railway infrastructure. Later abandoned, the reinforced concrete construction was renovated in 1990 on the occasion of the World Cup, as part of an urban regeneration project that also included the restoration of an old railway bridge: the operation was intended to emphasise the circular, concave-shaped volume, interspersed with twenty-two raised ribs, transforming the anonymous structure into a strongly recognisable landmark. In addition to restoring the walls and ribs, consolidating, and waterproofing the surfaces, Original Designers 6R5 Network's work included the cladding of the exposed concrete structure with coloured ceramic tiles in 14 shades forming twenty-two polychrome segments. In 2015, the work was restored by the same studio and inaugurated for Expo.
The Collegio di Milano, run by the Fondazione Collegio delle Università Milanesi, is an operative inter-university college surrounded by a vast park, whose main building was originally designed by Zanuso to house an aid centre for African countries. The Brutalist-style architecture, often compared to the Andrew Melville Halls (James Stirling, St. Andrews, Scotland 1967), consists of three elements, arranged to form a “fork-shaped” plan opening out towards the park: a double-height volume housing the communal services and two bodies on three sloping levels housing the students' accommodation, overlooking private terraces with parapets in solid sandblasted brick, whose rhythmic pattern accentuates the dynamism of the façades.
Casa della Memoria (House of Memory) is a cultural institute of the City of Milan that hosts five associations active in the field of promoting the universal values of freedom and democracy. The essential volume with a rectangular base is entirely covered with images representative of Milan's post-war history, perceivable sharply from afar and progressively blurred up close, emphasising the multitude of memories and the complexity of their interpretation. The polychrome brick cladding explicitly relates to the Lombard tradition of brick decorations on buildings such as the Ospedale Maggiore and Santa Maria delle Grazie.
The Diamond Tower is included in the Porta Nuova redevelopment programme and is part of the Varesine Business District (or Porta Nuova Varesine). The complex is currently home to the Italian companies of the BNP Paribas Group and houses offices and commercial activities. The main body is flanked by two lower bodies (“Diamantini”) and is characterised by an irregular geometry that multiplies the light reflections on the glass curtain walls. Floors 11 and 27 will be open for the occasion.
Around the Porta Vittoria station (demolished and put underground as a stop for the railway link in the early 2000s), the area known as the former slaughterhouse, with its Art Nouveau-style buildings overlooking Viale Molise and Largo Marinai d'Italia, preserves the memory of the historic ‘’cittadella annonaria‘’ from the early 20th century: a complex of buildings for food storage and trade that served as a logistics hub for distribution to the city. ARIA is the urban regeneration project that will transform the former Porta Vittoria slaughterhouse, which has been in a state of neglect for more than twenty years, into a new neighbourhood, reconnecting the site with the surrounding urban fabric: the project envisages more than 1,200 new social housing flats at subsidised rents, as well as public green spaces, commercial activities and neighbourhood services. The visit will take place in a portion of the site area.