Milano

Just of the high speed Trenitalia Frecciarossa, welcome to Stazione Milano Centrale! Time for another fabulous Reading Cities class trip!

One helluva train station, it has quite the grandeur.

One of the first stops just through the old city border and tariff house was this park tucked away from the streets, and this area, tucked away from the park. We were on the outside of an exhibition gallery.

All the class being awesome and taking notes.

As we made our way toward the city center, we kept diverging on to side streets to talk about various buildings, like this one.

The next few photos are all in the same area. There is some nifty stuff going on.

Side view of that same building.

Same area again.

Pass between two buildings and see that.

In Milan, we were heavily introduced to 'fascist architecture', a style that developed in Italy that coincided with the same government. The building to the right is a good example.

This is a hotel lobby. Absolutely ridiculous, but this is Milan.

Trippy, eh?

Timo and a dude on a folding bike.

From Piazza della Scala, this is the entrance to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, a covered street area that is pretty darn awesome.

Scala Theater. This is really all we got to see of it, but we were still required to analyze it in our sketchbooks...

Just a glass dome covering the whole street.

There is a pretty nifty effect of confusion between indoor and outdoor. It is open air but covered, enclosed by the roof, but open to sunlight.

On the other side of the galleria was the cathedral, a monumental work of gothic architecture placed into Italy. It is probably the most pure example of gothic architecture I have seen in this country as well.

Like any good monument, there was some sort of restoration going on. And in this case the sponsor of said restoration wanted to put a gynormous video-ad board on the side of the church.

Right under the visitors entrance to the rooftop terrace.

Yep, you are able to walk on the roof of the cathedral of Milan. Check out those flying buttresses.

Incredible ornately detailed, those flying buttresses are.

The spire up to the top.

From the roof, this skyline was revealed. I have not seen a modern skyline like this since January, and to discover it in Italy was pretty surprising. Milan is definitely much more free of it's historical past than say Firenze or Rome.

The moon came out to hang with Mr.Sun this wonderful day.

The Piazza outside of the Milan Cathedral was probably the busiest one I had seen to that point. So many people. (Also so many shenanigan-people. Milan was mostly full of the bracelet pushers.)

There was also a view to the south to this building, the Velasca Tower. Which is mostly apartments I believe. Definitely unlike any typical American skyscraper. It stands as a monument, and is interesting. But is it ugly? Awful? Or does its uniqueness work within the context to become something special? Be sure to comment with your thoughts!

Zoomed out view towards the skyscrapers. The dome is for the galleria.

Scaffolding blends in rather beautifully.

We proceeded to spend an excess amount of time on the roof. Simply relaxing and enjoying our time, taking in the sun. Why can't all college classes program chill time on the roof of a gothic cathedral into their syllabus?

Our next stop was the Museum of the 20th century. Which is a classically proportioned, though minimalistic building across the Piazza from the galleria entrance. This is an interior view to the cathedral.

The museum prohibited photos, so there really isn't anything to show. My favorite part of the museum was the excellent display of Italian Futurist art, much of it by Umberto Boccioni. I enjoyed learning about their ideas of motion back in Architecture History III.

Duomo of Milan, soaking in the sunlight.

Piazza at night.

The next day, we took a trip to the Sforzesco Castle, which was a castle converted into a museum. Right around this fountain was a horde of people trying to 'give' you 'free' bracelets. Fortunately I learned how to say "I'm on shrooms" in Italian. and do so in a very freaky manner, sufficiently scaring them and/or confusing them and/or making them laugh.

But once you pass through this threshold, the shenanigan people were gone. Nothing is stopping them from from passing through the portal, but for some reason, they don't, but they sure do like to congregate on the entrance to thresholds like this.

My favorite room in the castle was this one. Currently off limits and under restoration. But the lighting and scaffolding was very cool. But- Believe it or not, it was Leonardo da Vinci who worked on these ceiling frescoes.

The armor room!

And this room had a really nifty circulation plan, designed to house this Michelangelo sculpture.

Knight e cavallo.

Castle!

They had a really cool wing of the museum dedicated to musical instruments as well. This photo is one I hope my Mom will appreciate!

For the remainder of the day, we had free time, but our professor would be visiting many of the main interesting architectural sights in Milan. (Several slightly more obscure and less apparent to the general tourist population.) Though our first stop was actually a pretty important church by Bramante in 1478. Santa Maria presso San Satiro.

Once you walk in the door, you get this awesome view down the barrel vault all the way to the end of the apse, all the way down there.

LOL, JUST KIDDING! (insert trollface here) the entire far side of the church is fake, a visual false perspective trick. The far end of the church is actually flat with the far wll of the crossing. There was little room to build the church, so the visual trick was used.

It really is an incredible effect. Back in the day, it was completely revolutionary. For the medieval person, this false sense of space when viewed from the entrance was completely mind blowing. Probably even moreso than that phrase. Our professor was sure to emphasize how this church would have shattered the sense of previously held visual reality for those people.

Our next stop was north to the modern skyscraper area of Milan.

The two buildings above wrapped around a space, forming a new Piazza but with giant gaping holes cut into it, revealing the lower levels.

This lower level is primarily the entrance to an American sized supermarket. We were able to buy alot of dirt cheap food there for lunch.

I'll just throw up these scenes from the whole area.

I so badly wanted to go out and walk on the water.

It was about an inch or two deep.

Skyscraper!

I don't know this for sure, but I will just assume and say this is the worlds largest foosball table.

Despite the awesomeness of this modern complex, this would go on to become the best part of the whole area later in the night.

Form + Materials

Busted glass always makes for cool close ups.

See through + reflection + cracks

Our next stop was to this cool cultural area our professor knew about. there was a pretty good design bookstore, where I got caught up in a book about bicycle styles. 

I tried the vivid mode on my camera. A bit much, eh?

View from the rooftop garden. True funkatecture.

Our next visit was to this building in the south of the city, a Bocconi University Addition. All full of grand formal gestures.

Our professor kept making comments about different buildings on our way back to the Duomo.

We walked past the Torre Velasca. I'm not sure what to think of it, but the warm lighting certainly did make this landmark stand out.

View from the bottom.See the moon?

Milaese street art/propaganda. I love it.

Our next stop was regrouping with the whole class to go to see Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper.

While we waited outside the entrance, I would like to point out the green table. They are in Florence too. They ask if you want to sign a petition, and donate money to help with drug rehabilitation programs. But my roomate Forrest noticed fishy inconsistencies. (Or too much consistency, all the different workers had the exact same story.) He did some obsessive research, to find out they were all scammers, they take your information and sell it to people, then pocket any donations..... SO I go up to them and in my best pseudo stoner voice (like cheech + chong), I ask them if they are selling any drugs. Confusedly they reply, that they are anti drugs, and do not sell them, and they explain they are anti drugs, and want to stop drug abuse. I replied in the same stoner voice, "Oh that's good, I don't abuse, I just use." and proceeded to ask where I can buy drugs. The persons face got really angry when they realized I knew their scheme, so I proceeded to dance backwards on one foot and say various things about "i funghi" in a filly high pitched voice...............
The last supper was pretty cool, though VERY weathered, due to Leonardo's fancy paints.

Chinese food in Chinatown that night! (I would accidentally leave my nice Italian hat under the seat though)

And a group of us proceeded bac to the modern skyscraper piazza that evening.

Looks just as cool at night.

Gave me a chance to bust out the long shutter speed.

Fountains! Color!

(Unfortunately I didn't realize I left the long shutter speed on for this photo.) But our group got on the super long foosball table. And we were joined by about ten Italian kids who appeared slightly younger than us. Apparently we played for over an hour. Time really flew, but it was a really good time!!!

The final day, we went to a park past the castle from the previous day. Right around this area were a ton of little lizards down below basking in the sun. If we held our hand as to cast a shadow over them, they would scamper into the sunlight.

Inside the park was the Triennale di Milano, another museum, cool architecturally, but the inside was cool, but the content was definitely not to my taste. It was mostly contemporary weird stuff. So I didn't feel like sticking around,

So Ben and myself wondered back around the castle towards the duomo, because we missed the interior the first day.

And there it is! Gothic architecture in churches really is an incredible thing to experience.

Light + height.

View of the crossing, from a transept arm.

The huge organ.

It was a little odd, because mass was occurring, but the church was still open to the tourists, who could walk through the aisles.  That is what aisles were intended for, so pilgrims could visit without disturbing mass. Still works today I guess.

Rose window in the apse.

Our next stop was back to Chinatown to retrieve my hat. This weekend, we made pretty decent use of Milan's metro system. It is a pretty large city and alot of it is not walkable.

One last thing we wanted to see was the Pirelli Tower by Gio Ponto and Pier Luigi Nervi (also: Rome's boxing arena and Florence's football stadium). It was one of the earliest modern glass and concrete skyscrapers in Milan. We had learned about in architecture history.

It was cool to see, but it was located in mainly a business district. And on a sunday, it was completely dead, and we seemed to be the only souls in the area.

So we made our way back to the hotel to meet the group, stopping first to get kebab. In the process, I stopped to appreciate this form of restaurant advertising. (Not a kebeb place though. (the kebeb place we went to was pretty awesome, quality panino and friendly employees (the US NEEDS more kebab places (for real, though))))

Panorama of Milan's super cool train station.

I originally included this photo because of how awesome the station looks. But as I write these blog posts further and further away from the date they actually happened, I realize other things. For instance, check out that beautiful Frecciabianca train, with the zippy Frecciarossa behind it. I will for sure miss le Frecce back in the states...