On the Milan neighbourhood that exists between design weeks — and why it is better then
The Salone del Mobile empties Milan of its own residents and fills it with the design industry. What remains — the Brera that is present the other forty-nine weeks — is the more interesting city.
The Salone del Mobile arrives in April and the city rearranges itself around it. The showrooms on the Tortona side fill with installation work and queues. The Brera neighbourhood — the small grid of cobbled streets around the Pinacoteca — becomes the backdrop for events and aperitivo receptions held in courtyards opened annually for the purpose. The city performs itself for the industry. This is not a complaint. It is a fact about what Milan is and what it does.
The more interesting question is what Brera is the other forty-nine weeks. The answer is a neighbourhood of modest streets, family-run restaurants that have not updated their menus since the 1980s, and a handful of galleries that operate without external reference. The Pinacoteca di Brera — the state gallery that occupies the former Jesuit college on Via Brera — runs a permanent collection that includes Mantegna's Dead Christ, Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus, and Raphael's Betrothal of the Virgin. On a Tuesday morning in March, these rooms are navigable at the speed they deserve.
The Via Fiori Chiari and Via Fiori Oscuri — the twin streets of the antiques and gallery quarter — are best on weekday afternoons. The dealers are present; the stock is visible through windows; the transaction, if you are the kind of person who buys things in these streets, is available. The art bookshop on Via Brera is the correct size: small enough that you can read the spines of everything in twenty minutes, with a stock that implies a single buyer with consistent taste.
The Pinacoteca's courtyard — open on most days — is one of the quieter spaces in the city centre. The bronze statue of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker by Antonio Canova occupies the north end of the courtyard. Napoleon is nude and heroic and slightly ridiculous; Canova's handling of the marble is exact regardless. The courtyard is free to enter. Almost no one comes before the gallery opens.
The café on Via Madonnina, a few streets west of the Pinacoteca, serves breakfast with the particular efficiency of a Milanese neighbourhood bar: the counter is four metres long, the coffee machine is always warm, and the cornetto is the argument for eating at the bar rather than at a table. The Salone weeks, when this street is rerouted for installation logistics, are the weeks to avoid. The other forty-nine weeks it is exactly what a good café in a good neighbourhood should be.