The Sixties in Milan

Cast iron waiting for the subway © Carlo Orsi Archive

Until February 9th, 2020 at Palazzo Morando in Milan, photographs, posters, magazines and design objects that characterized the city's Sixties will be on display: the decade of the economic and cultural boom before it was interrupted on December 12th 1969 by the attack. National Agriculture in Piazza Fontana.

The exhibition is divided into sections that deal with different and complementary themes to tell the ferment of those years. Starting from the reception of national musicians – Enzo Jannacci, Giorgio Gaber, Adriano Celentano, Patty Pravo – and international, with attention to jazz and its greatest exponents (in Milan in those years they all passed a bit, from Duke Ellington to Thelonious Monk, up to Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan) and then the Beatles concert at Vigorelli of 1965, that of the Rolling Stones at the Palalido of 1967 up to Jimi Hendrix for the first time in Italy at the Piper in 1968.

A big chunk of those years then concerns building development and new buildings like the Pirellone or the Torre Velasca, the new suburbs like Quarto Oggiaro, Gallaratese, Gratosoglio, Comasinama and the subway and the ring roads that connected Milan to what he had around, favoring the growth of commerce. The final section of the exhibition is dedicated to the Piazza Fontana massacre with images of the bombing and funerals in the Duomo, along with documents and objects from that period recovered thanks to the archives of the police and the police headquarters in Milan. Below is a small preview of the images that you will find on display, which already tell a lot about the city and those years.