A journey through time not to be missed at Palazzo Morando in Milan, bringing back to life an era of great change through photographs, documents and memories. Between triumphs and tragedies, a blow to the heart.
The new exhibition at Palazzo Morando in Milan is truly not to be missed: Milan in the '60s. Storia di un decennio irripetibile has the great merit of reminding us of what we were capable of, for better and for worse. The city transformed itself, taking on the face and the importance it still holds today across the country and in Europe. But alongside the boom in design, fashion, the arts and construction, opinions and acts of violence against this "new modernity" — this development — also awoke. 50 years on from the Piazza Fontana massacre of 12 December 1969, visiting this exhibition means not forgetting and taking time to reflect. You can do so until 9 February.
This is not a self-celebratory exhibition, nor a banal revival of all that was beautiful. Milan in the '60s. Storia di un decennio irripetibile is a well-crafted and well-documented historical, cultural and social journey, brought to life through black-and-white photographs, documents, magazines and design and furnishing objects that trace the great changes that took place in the years following the postwar boom. The overriding feeling one perhaps experiences when visiting the rooms of Palazzo Morando is astonishment. You feel it before the images documenting the construction work for the metro line at Piazza Duomo or San Babila, or when admiring those that immortalise the greatest names in international jazz in Milan's clubs, or again when you stand open-mouthed watching a scene of a train arriving from the south at Milan's Stazione Centrale.
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How different we were, how much ground has been covered and how proud and pleased with ourselves we were. Nostalgia, but perhaps above all an awareness of the immense capacity that was expressed in every field and turned into excellence. Milan became an attractive hub in a very short space of time: everyone arrived here from many other regions of Italy, and everyone found work, had a home and made something of themselves. Today that happens less frequently, even here in the most modern and European of Italian cities.
But the Sixties were also years of protests, strikes and massacres. One, certainly unforgettable. Some said that with the Piazza Fontana massacre the age of innocence came to an end: the strategy of tension began, the dark years that for a long time would change not only Italian politics but also the lives of ordinary citizens. In the exhibition, the room dedicated to images of the Banca dell'Agricoltura destroyed after the bomb is a place unto itself compared to the rest of the show: you enter by passing through a black curtain, a simple but symbolic gesture to make us understand that after that day everything would change. The walls are dark and the photographs, as always, black and white. The massacre is captured entirely in the shot showing the crater left by the explosion, or the hats on the ground belonging to the dead and injured. And after the dead, the rubble and the wounded, the pain and the silence: "Milan bows to the innocent victims and prays for peace" reads the sign on the door of the Duomo during the funerals of the 17 victims. Those who were there speak of thousands of people, for a long time stunned and dumbstruck, mortally wounded by grief. And the shots convey this with extreme effectiveness: they tell of a city united, perhaps frightened, but cohesive. Fifty years on, a powerful testament.
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Those who love Milan, those who criticise it, those who talk about it without knowing it, the Milanese and the "visitor" — everyone should see this exhibition. Perhaps, in some respects, it is an almost too Milanese show, one that speaks at length about the city, its places, its atmospheres — from the working-class neighbourhoods to the fog that enveloped everything — but, without being presumptuous, it is also true that the great changes that defined the Sixties arrived here before anywhere else, so it is only right to give credit where it is due. Enjoy this journey through time, between nostalgia, pride and pain, and if you didn't live through it, think about how wonderful it would have been to live in Milan in the Sixties.
The exhibition is open until 9 February 2020, every day except Monday, from 10:00 to 20:00, and on Thursdays until 22:30. Tickets cost 12 euros. The catalogue, on sale for 37 euros, is beautiful, as are those from past exhibitions — perfect Christmas gift ideas. Every Saturday and Sunday, at 11:30, 15:00 and 16:30, guided tours are organised for a maximum of 25 people, at a cost of 5 euros per person in addition to the exhibition ticket. A final opportunity: to attend the talks on Saturday 30 November at 15:00 and Sunday 1 December at 11:00.