Pirelli HangarBicocca

North of the centre, in the former industrial district of Bicocca, Pirelli HangarBicocca turns factory sheds the size of rail stations into single-work art experiences. The ceiling heights are industrial, and the permanent tenant is Anselm Kiefer's Seven Heavenly Palaces — seven 18-metre concrete towers standing in a hall once used to assemble Ansaldo locomotives.

Why it matters

The foundation, established by Pirelli in 2004, is one of the clearest examples of Milan's industrial reconversion: the plant where Ansaldo built rolling stock became an exhibition machine for art at a scale no conventional museum can host. Its two principal volumes — the Hangar, a cathedral-like hall of exposed steel trusses, and the Navate, bays of long parallel aisles — were kept raw, so each exhibition is staged inside the factory rather than disguised by it. Its monographic shows have drawn curators and audiences from across Europe.

What to notice

The visit pivots on the Seven Heavenly Palaces 2004–2015, Kiefer's permanent installation: seven towers built from raw concrete, their surfaces scored and encrusted with lead, ash, clay and dried plant matter, each named after the sefirot of Jewish mysticism. Seen at close range, their scale changes the visitor's perception of the space. In the Navate, look upward before looking at the art: the steel trusses and gantry lines of the factory are part of every show staged beneath them, and large-scale commissions have used that height deliberately. The Shed, the long narrow wing glazed by Renzo Piano's studio when the site was reconfigured in 2012, hosts the rotating solo exhibitions. Outside, eL Seed's calligraphic work greets you at the entrance, one of several site-specific pieces the foundation has commissioned.

Context and history

Bicocca was one of Milan's great working districts until industry moved out in the 1980s and 1990s; its redevelopment into a university and research quarter is the background against which Pirelli, whose name the foundation carries, chose to preserve the largest sheds for culture rather than demolish them. The permanent installation itself tells the site's story: the Seven Heavenly Palaces began with the foundation's opening programme in 2004 and reached their present seven-tower form in a 2015 expansion. Since 2004 the institution has produced or hosted monographic projects by leading contemporary artists, and its education programme runs guided tours, school workshops and community initiatives around each exhibition. The 2012 renovation that added the Renzo Piano-designed Shed gave the complex its present configuration: permanent installation, production halls and temporary galleries under one roof.