Museo del Novecento
On Gingerguide's self-guided Milan audio tour, Museo del Novecento is a stop worth about ~75 min. Stand in front of it, press play for a short narrated story, and put any follow-up question to the built-in AI guide.
- Type museum
- Suggested visit ~75 min
- Milan Milan guide
About Museo del Novecento
Milan's museum of twentieth-century Italian art, housed in the upper floors of the Palazzo dell'Arengario on the Piazza del Duomo, with a superb collection from Futurism to Arte Povera and spectacular views of the Duomo through glass walls.
The Museo del Novecento is Milan's great collection of twentieth-century Italian art, a comprehensive survey of Italian art from the early Futurist movement of the 1910s through to Arte Povera and Conceptual Art of the 1970s. Opened in 2010 in the upper floors of the Palazzo dell'Arengario, a pair of striking Rationalist buildings on the Piazza del Duomo built in the 1930s, the museum occupies spectacular spaces with continuous floor-to-ceiling glass walls offering vertiginous views of the Duomo literally a few metres away. The collection of approximately 4,000 works includes masterpieces of Italian Futurism (Umberto Boccioni's States of Mind and The City Rises), paintings by Giorgio de Chirico, works of the Novecento movement, post-war Informale painting, Lucio Fontana's slashed canvases, and Arte Povera works. The building and its views alone make a visit worthwhile.
Did you know? Lucio Fontana's Spatial Concepts (Concetto Spaziale), the slashed canvases in this museum, were initially greeted with outrage as acts of destruction rather than creation. Fontana argued that cutting through the canvas opened art up to the infinite space beyond the picture plane.
How much time do you need at Museo del Novecento?
Around ~75 min works well for Museo del Novecento — time to look properly and listen to its story on the spot. Linger if you like; nothing on a self-guided walk is on a clock.
Should you stop at Museo del Novecento?
Yes — Museo del Novecento made the cut as one of 32 places the Gingerguide team researched and narrated across Milan. The story tells you why it is worth the stop, and the AI guide fills in anything you still wonder.
Nearby stops in Milan
Hear the story of Museo del Novecento
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