Prada, the iconic high fashion atelier in Milan, has a museum with a contemporary art mission. The site itself is art: It used to be a gin distillery and the complex combines angles and surfaces and courtyards to set the scene for the galleries inside.
Even the elevator is a work of art: as large as a room and with a glass wall so we could see the views, the control buttons ran horizontally.
Our first installation was experiential as we walked through a narrow passage in total darkness to understand the feeling of blindness (you won’t be seeing pictures of that.) When we emerged, we were in a gallery with upside down amanita mushrooms. Some were rotating:
I also liked a special exhibit by the Lebanese artist Mona Hatoum. To me, the map with red marbles was a symbol of world-wide migration and diasporas.
Even the coffee shop was a highly designed space:
Our next morning stop was to see a vertical, green building in the fashionable Porta Nueva district. The buildings are called Bosco Verticale. A small unit in the building might be 1-2M euros. I found a five day AirBnB rental for about seven thousand euros. There is a wonderful park nearby that interprets the intentional tree plantings in groves that name each one. For example, a grove of red maple has large bronze script in the walkway that says “Red Maple, October Color,” or something like that.
We had a leisurely afternoon to ourselves before our farewell dinner. Our group has been wonderful, and it is rather sad to say goodbye. Sometimes we can keep up a bit with Zoom meetings and our WhatsApp chat. My very first group trip was to the USSR when I was fifteen. I am not in touch with anyone from that group but I still remember many of them. If they popped back into my life, I would be keen to know more about their lives, and the same might be said for the groups I’ve travelled with since. Safe travels to all.
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