MuseoCity 2026: ten events not to be missed

In the 2026 MuseoCity program, the ADI Design Museum becomes a privileged vantage point from which to read design as a meeting ground between culture and enterprise. Alongside the display of the Compasso d’Oro Collection, the museum hosts several thematic in-depth exhibitions that narrate the history of Italian design practice and social transformations from within the collection itself: from “DesignUp! – soluzioni di continuità,” which interprets objects as the outcome of complex systems, to “Il cucchiaio e la città,” a twenty-seven-step journey through Made in Italy award-winning design from 1954 to today. “Fotografia alla Carriera” entrusts 151 images with portraying the masters of design through the eyes of contemporary photographers, while “IN PLAY – Design for Sport” explores how data, research, and technology are reshaping the sports landscape.

Free guided tours, included in the admission ticket and promoted by Museimpresa for MuseoCity, offer the opportunity to retrace the history of Italian design as a field of continuous experimentation, inviting visitors to look both at achievements and future challenges in a domain that has always been fertile ground for new ideas and connections.

MuseoCity offers a unique opportunity to discover places that are usually less accessible to the public, such as artists’ archives — spaces where artworks are preserved and studied. Among the must-visit venues are the Archivi Valerio e Camilla Adami, where visitors can explore the independent yet complementary research of the two painters; the Archivio Bonalumi, where a guided tour leads the public through the career and works of Agostino Bonalumi; and the Fondazione Emilio Isgrò, which opens its exhibition spaces to present from within the practice of Cancellatura, one of the most iconic gestures in the history of Italian art of the second half of the twentieth century. The itinerary is completed with access to the Studio Alberto Garutti, a place where design, teaching, and artistic practice have gone hand in hand for decades, and the Archivio Studio Origoni Steiner, which, through sculptures, sketches, photographs, and original materials, recounts the history of one of the major workshops of Milanese graphic and visual design.

With the opening of its new headquarters in QT8, the Casva – Centro Alti Studi sulle Arti Visive takes part in MuseoCity 2026 with a major exhibition dedicated to Jonathan De Pas, Donato D’Urbino, and Paolo Lomazzi, leading figures in Italian design of the second half of the twentieth century. United under the acronym DDL, the three designers recognized in the city of Milan a laboratory for experimenting with new ways of inhabiting domestic space, creating objects that have entered the popular imagination such as the inflatable Blow armchair, the Joe sofa, and the Sciangai coat rack. Curated by Maria Teresa Feraboli with exhibition design by Andrea Gianni, “Fantasticamente effervescenti” goes beyond the narrative of iconic pieces to reconstruct the designers’ conceptual approach — from experimental homes to visionary architectures, from pneumatic domes to the residential hypercube. On the occasion of MuseoCity, guided tours are scheduled, offering visitors the chance to explore this trajectory from an archival and curatorial perspective, further emphasizing the relationship between design, industry, and the culture of living.

With the 2026 edition, MuseoCity expands its scope by involving venues just outside Milan as well. Among them is the Molteni Museum in Giussano, inaugurated in 2015 within the Molteni Compound to celebrate the Group’s eightieth anniversary. Housed in the Glass Cube — a space set within the company park and redesigned by Ron Gilad — the museum aims to narrate the identity of this historic Italian design brand through objects, archives, and temporary exhibitions. On the occasion of MuseoCity, the Molteni Museum offers guided tours and workshops for children as part of the exhibition “Museum 2D,” curated by Ron Gilad, which explores the history of Molteni’s graphic design and communication as an integral part of the brand’s identity. Catalogues, posters, advertising campaigns, and editorial materials trace decades of collaborations with designers and agencies. A special section is devoted to the synergies developed over time between Molteni&C, UniFor, Citterio, and Dada, as well as with major photographers such as Gabriele Basilico, Mario Carrieri, and many others.

In the 2026 MuseoCity program, the Fondazione Giuseppe Iannaccone ETS opens to the public the spaces housing one of the most significant private collections in Italy, located within the law firm Iannaccone & Associati. The guided tour retraces the history of a research path that began in the 1990s and has grown along a coherent trajectory spanning the twentieth century and the present day. On one side is the core dedicated to the 1930s, featuring works by Ottone Rosai, Alberto Ziveri, and artists associated with Corrente, the Roman School, Chiarismo, and the Sei di Torino groups; on the other is the contemporary art section, initiated in the early 2000s, bringing together Italian and international artists, from Cindy Sherman to emerging figures. Now comprising around five hundred works, the collection is in continuous rotation, thus offering a direct view of the most current artistic research, in line with the Foundation’s mission — established in 2023 — to support young artists.

For MuseoCity 2026, Fondazione Maire – Ets opens its historical archive to the public with the exhibition “Engineering in Motion: The Places of Sport,” which explores the role of engineering in shaping sports landscapes from the twentieth century to the present day. Drawings, technical plans, models, and period materials show how large Alpine complexes, stadiums, athletes’ villages, and corporate spaces dedicated to wellbeing have helped transform the relationship between people, territory, and sporting practice. From the early postwar centers of sports tourism to iconic structures such as the Palavela in Turin — designed by Annibale and Giorgio Rigotti in 1961 and renovated by Gae Aulenti for the 2006 Winter Olympics — the exhibition path presents each project as the outcome of both a technical and a cultural challenge.

For MuseoCity 2026, and just days after the conclusion of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympic Games, on Saturday 28 February Fondazione Pirelli is holding a special opening with guided tours dedicated to the relationship between winter sports, technical innovation, and communication. “Winter Stories” leads the public inside the archive through a narrative where products, images, and little-known events intersect, with the participation of actors and actresses from the Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa, invited to give voice to historical documents and materials. The itinerary retraces key milestones in Pirelli’s research: from the first rubber soles of the late nineteenth century, designed to cope with snow and rain, to the Vibram alpine sole of the 1930s, and on to the development of the Artiglio, Nuovo Inverno, and BS3 winter tires, protagonists of competitions and sporting feats on ice and snowy roads. Alongside stories of technical research are those of design and communication, featuring artists such as Riccardo Manzi, Alessandro Mendini, Ilio Negri, and Bob Noorda, who gave graphic form to tread patterns, as well as innovative advertising campaigns that established the idea of Pirelli as a synonym for reliability, elegance, and technical avant-garde.

At a time when the future of the San Siro stadium is at the center of public debate due to its planned demolition in the coming years, the Museo dello Stadio’s special exhibition for MuseoCity 2026 becomes an opportunity to reflect once again on the historical, architectural, and symbolic value of this place. “San Siro. A Place of Art, Culture, and Sport,” scheduled from 11 February to 15 March, brings together works by various artists who have depicted football and sport through visual languages capable of transforming athletic gestures, emotions, and collective rituals into images. The exhibition path invites visitors to view the stadium both as a building dedicated to sporting practice and as an integral part of Milan’s urban identity — an architecture that has accompanied generations of fans and that will continue to live in the city’s imagination even after its disappearance.

For MuseoCity 2026, Palazzo Assolombarda opens its doors on an exceptional basis with guided tours revealing the history and transformations of one of the most significant buildings in twentieth-century Milanese architecture. Designed in 1958 by Gio Ponti, Antonio Fornaroli, and Alberto Rosselli as the headquarters of the industrialists’ association, the building expresses a modern vision of architecture. Characterized by materials and geometries that reflect sobriety and compositional clarity, the building has recently reactivated key spaces such as the entrance and the inner courtyard, transformed from a private garden into a meeting place and event space serving the city. The guided tour leads visitors through representative halls, offices, and workspaces, pausing to focus on Gio Ponti’s original furnishings as well as on the renovated areas such as the Courtyard and the Lounge.

For MuseoCity 2026, the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci opens one of its storage facilities, offering a guided tour that takes the public behind the scenes of its collections. The route will include objects related to sport and leisure, scientific instruments from exceptional contexts, prototypes of domestic technologies, and technical devices used by professionals, providing a tangible reading of the history of engineering and innovation. Among the most significant highlights will be the opportunity to see up close the Tenda Rossa, symbol of the 1928 Arctic expedition of the airship Italia, recently restored after a complex conservation project. Seeing these objects and tools in person, and understanding how they work, allows visitors to grasp their value as material traces of scientific endeavors that have helped shape our relationship with technology.