The Municipality of Milan announces an international design competition, with an open procedure, for the conversion and annexation of the building facing Piazza del Duomo, known as the “Second Arengario,” to the visitor route of the Museo del Novecento. The goal is to create a single large exhibition complex dedicated to modern and contemporary arts, with standards for collections, exhibition spaces, and services placing it among the most innovative museum institutions internationally.

NEW SQUARE

The new layout of the area, free from the tram infrastructure, allows for an unconventional use of the space in front, typical of Milan: by lowering the walking surface to -7.50 m, we create a new underground entrance for the Museum.
The new connection, at the level of the basement floor of the first Arengario, allows communication between the two museum locations, while preserving the visual continuity with the perspective axis aligned with Galleria Vittorio Emanuele.
This simple but decisive intervention defines a new urban environment that is no longer just a passage space but becomes an authentic, contemporary public landmark for the City.
The new connecting volume, created underground and naturally illuminated by large prismatic glass showcases, links the two Arengari and houses the new entrance with ticket office and bookshop. It also helps expand the exhibition spaces and distributes the flows of entry and exit, thus ensuring functional separation between visitor paths and service routes.
The volume occupies the entire section of the two twin buildings, transforming the section of Via Marconi between Via Dogana and Via Rastrelli into a pedestrian square.
The intervention alternates subtraction and addition: excavation of the road section between the building block in line with the first Arengario and the adjacent building, construction of a staircase from Via Rastrelli, and the addition of two small lateral underground volumes intended to house the technical and service rooms of the museum.
The result is a system of squares on two levels: to the west, continuity with Piazza Duomo is maintained, while on the opposite side, a new square forms for access to the Museum.

VISIT EXPERIENCE

The relocation of the Museum’s entry and exit services, ticket office, and bookshop to the central area between the two Arengari streamlines the visit experience, enriching the storytelling possibilities of the museum paths. The visitor flow originates from a central position, gathering incoming flows from Piazza Duomo, Piazza Diaz, Piazza Reale, and the subway, and redirects them towards the different collections. For Arengario 2, we propose a visit sequence similar to the already established one of Arengario 1, with vertical movement from one floor to another and the possibility of descending in a single motion at the end of the path.

MAKING ART

The decision to connect the two Arengari with new underground volumes ensures the continuity of the exhibition path between the two emerging bodies, making the presence of a connecting bridge unnecessary.
However, as designers who first focus on respecting and then synthesizing the different and contradictory requests and priorities that have emerged throughout the design process, we made a strategic choice to propose a solution that holds both artistic value and tourist appeal.
In analogy with what happens with the temporary pavilions of the Serpentine Gallery, we propose installing a connecting structure to ‘attach’ to the Arengari in a temporary and removable form—not just one, but numerous “signature” walkways that can be commissioned on an ad-hoc basis according to a seasonal schedule or special occasions.
In this way, the connecting structure is not merely an object that responds to the functional needs of the exhibition path continuity, but becomes an opportunity, even a pretext, for an art event: an object that is different and reconfigurable each time, drawing the public and the world’s attention with each new occasion.
A blend of art, architecture, and engineering that transforms a functional infrastructure into an artistic experience that comes to life on the urban stage offered by the exceptional context of Piazza Duomo.