WHAT ABOUT A LIGHTING ITINERARY IN MILAN?

Dec 14, 2023

Christmas is coming.
We are venturing out on a cold, snowy day for some presents. People hurry by at a frantic pace down the streets of the center.
What about a lighting itinerary?

And so we begin: first stop, Illy cafè.
A sweet scent of aromatic baked coffee beans saturates the sharp winter breeze, drawing us inside an ancient palace. A courtyard anticipates the eye-catching, powerful logo of a brand that has chosen to express its identity through the world of art.
While waiting for our coffee, eyes wide open and attention focused on details, we can realize how the design of an interior can tell in every detail the story of a brand through a wise selection of materials, words, colors and of course, light.
Light that, concealed into niches and shelves, polarizes and guides our attention, with its discreet, eloquent presence, along the rich stage of illy’s universe, in an immersive, multi-sensory experience.

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Insight The project was managed with BIM method since the beginning by all the consultants becoming another example of sophisticated design from every point of view.
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Back to the harsh temperature, we decide to visit the nearby Bagatti Valsecchi Museum. A lighting intervention, especially in a context of high artistic value, plays a strategic role and is perfectly appropriate, the more it remains invisible. Entering an art gallery and letting yourself be naturally captured by the most relevant and important masterpieces is precisely that value that becomes real. Designing light is a statement that reveals and exalts beauty, and it is what has been meticulously and attentively studied and realized in this context.

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Technical comment the first step of the lighting project was to identify the existing lighting features, restore them and use them at their best.
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Leaving the pleasant museum break behind us, we are attracted by intense yellow curtains at the corner of via Gesù. It’s the newly renovated mono-brand boutique of Acqua di Parma, a historic company which, due to the success of the original Colonia, still produced with the same refreshing fragrance, in the same cylindrical bottles, and bright yellow packaging, has become a symbol of Italian sophistication. Lighting, working in synergy with the palette mood, inspired by the Mediterranean vocation, moulds the warm scenery, conveying a bright, wrapping atmosphere, evoking sunshine, blooming flowers, and fresh breezes. Difficult, challenging task of the exercise has been to find proper, balanced color temperature scales, allowing the harmonious coexistence between sophisticated lighting details accentuating every single item and an overall diffuse radiance.

On our way home, we pass through Piazza Meda. We haven’t seen the place for quite some time in the late evening and we are fascinated by the enticing, seductive vibes provoked by the sapient lighting in concert with the splendid renovated arched portico of Galleria Bolchini restored by Parisotto + Formenton Architetti.
A Galleria is a place for passing-by, a sort of threshold, and the project of the light is declined and set mostly to permit a larger sun penetration inside the Portico and together with the new artificial lighting project, a new image both at daytime and night-time. Emphasized in its rhythmical slender verticality and grandeur, the light effect designed for the Portico sets a conversation with the Grande Disco by Pomodoro, vitalized in its contrast of shiny and dark, smooth and rough bronze surfaces.

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Add-on: in a video interview the project very well explained by the architects and a deep-dive in the lighting project by Marinella Patetta.
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Strolling around lights in Milano is the chance to pass-by known and familiar places reading them with other glasses and realize how our own perception can shift and change, becoming completely new depending on the lenses we use.. and Metis has special lenses that see the perfect light for every single place.

* Other Metis Lighting intervention we’re proud of that worth a visit are:
– Bulgari Hotel Milano
– Dior Boutique in Galleria
– Cafè in via dei Giardini, 2

Link for a Google Maps ready-to-use itinerary: Click here!

Illy Cafè: Giulio Boem, courtesy of Illy
Galleria Bolchini and Bagatti Valsecchi Museum: Leo Torri
Acqua di Parma: courtesy of Acqua di Parma