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.

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.

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.