Panorama Milano is a publishing project that portrays the city of Milan in all its contrasts and contradictions, a conceptual map of its multifaceted identity, mingling the feverish pace of fashion, the slow construction of architecture, and the paradoxes of contemporary art.

Thirty of the most representative figures of the local creative scene have selected images that they feel capture the city’s memories and energy, revealing its most unfamiliar, hidden aspects.

Distributed free of charge at bookstores, museums, galleries, theaters and cinemas in the winter of 2003, Panorama Milano looks at Milan through the eyes of A12, Giorgio Armani, Gabriele Basilico, Vanessa Beecroft, Mario Bellini, Stefano Boeri, Vincenzo Castella, Achille Castiglioni, Maurizio Cattelan, Pierluigi Cerri, Antonio Citterio, Fabrizio Ferri, Elio Fiorucci, Dario Fo, Giuseppe Gabellone, Giovanni Gastel, Stefano Giovannoni, Vittorio Gregotti, Armin Linke, Vico Magistretti, Gualtiero Marchesi, Enzo Mari, Alessando Mendini, Riccardo Muti, Milka Pogliani, Luca Ronconi, Ettore Sottsass, Franca Sozzani, Patrick Tuttofuoco, and Francesco Vezzoli.

Designed as a small set of postcards, the book Panorama Milanounfolds like a ribbon. We encounter the gaze of Nobel laureate in Literature Dario Fo, who presents one of his own production stills from Lo Svitato (1955), of conductor Riccardo Muti, for whom there is no place more significant than the courtyard of the Milan Conservatory, of Achille Castiglioni, who before his death had selected an image of the statue of St. Francis made by his father in 1927; while architect Pierluigi Cerri pays tribute to this late, great industrial designer by choosing a poster from his solo exhibition in 1984.

The contemporary artists play with provocation in their depictions of Milan: Vanessa Beecroft chooses one of her own pieces, showing her brother and a statuesque yoga instructor in front of the courthouse; Maurizio Cattelan explores the city’s history with a famous 1977 photo of a terrorist shooting; Armin Linke selects a 1940s snapshot of the QT8 district, built for the 8th Milan Triennale. Giuseppe Gabellone describes the past through an old picture found at the flea market, while Patrick Tuttofuoco looks at the city from above, through the magnifying glass of two other artists, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, with their view of Torre Velasca.

Chef Gualtiero Marchesi poses in front of the spires of Milan’s cathedral, while designer Giorgio Armani chooses a photo that sums up his presence in the city, full of energy and creative flair. The creative director of McCann-Erickson Italy, Milka Pogliani, sees Milan as a city of friction, exploring its controversial position in the contemporary world through a photograph of the Pirelli tower struck by an airplane on April 18, 2002. Ettore Sottsass’s colored bookshelves are flanked by Alessandro Mendini’s computer drawing of a dinosaur, while characters from Luchino Visconti’s film Rocco and His Brothers (1960), chosen by Francesco Vezzoli, are accompanied by the stars of a classic Totò film from 1956 Totò, Peppino e la Malafemmina, singled out by the A12 architectural collective.

Magical spots in Milan are highlighted in images selected by designer Elio Fiorucci, who shows us the fountain in the public park Giardini Pubblici at Porta Venezia, against the backdrop of Palazzo Dugnani, and Franca Sozzani, director of Vogue Italia, who opens the series with a picture of a Helmut Newton fashion shoot at the central railway station.