Temporary spaces in Milan: the Ex Macello, a must-see location in Porta Vittoria

The Ex Macello in Porta Vittoria, Milan, stands on an area occupying about 15 hectares in the eastern part of the city, south of the Porta Vittoria railway link. The structure was built between 1912 and 1914 by Giannino Ferrini and Giovanni Filippini, engineers from the municipal technical office. In the 1990s it was gradually abandoned until it was completely closed down in 2005. Almost 20 years later, the space is the protagonist of an activation strategy, with the aim of returning opportunities for citizens to get to know and experience the spaces, a bit like what already happened during the last edition of Fuorisalone with Alcova. The area is in fact the subject of an urban regeneration intervention, and this phase represents a strategic way to build a hinge between this portion of the urban fabric and the surrounding neighborhood. The program of events has been active since last September and will be active until October this year among festivals, exhibitions, shows and concerts such as Skate&Surf Film festival, Piano City and Will Festival. To find out more, we caught up with the curators of the project, Mario Viscardi, Piano B creative director, and Andrea Capaldi, artistic director of Mare Culturale Urbano.

Piano B and Mare Culturale Urbana are responsible for the temporary project of cultural and entertainment initiatives that enliven the spaces of the Ex Macello during the construction phase. How important is it to emphasize this phase?

Using disused spaces by making them places for gathering and cultural activities fulfills a number of objectives. First, they revitalize a neighborhood and bring it to the center of attention by opening it up to new opportunities. They grant the citizenry a place to physically gather and share common content and passions. They give cultural and entertainment operators evocative and inspiring spaces to create content. We think that organizing a space where people can come together, and make them feel good together, is always a positive and constructive act for our society and the world we live in. Moreover, these processes help the regeneration project to be born in an active and stimulating context, creating a bridge to the future.

What are the goals you have set to achieve? What is your operational time frame?
The space has been assigned to us until the end of October 2023, we are checking the possibility of being able to use it until the end of the year, we have to find an idea to make it cozy even when the temperatures drop, and experience it as much as possible before the construction site for the redevelopment of the area starts. The goals are to use it as a multidisciplinary space where we can organize festivals, concerts, events, conventions, parades, installations, exhibitions. We are ready to welcome anything beautiful that may come to mind. The real challenge is to manage the project in an environmentally and economically sustainable way. From this point of view we are off to a very good start, we are confident.

The Ex Macello is an iconic place: what are the guidelines for activating and giving new meaning to unused spaces in the city?

The guidelines are sustainability and inclusion. The Ex Macello is an experimental field for testing sustainable aggregation systems. All the activities we do are designed with the use of recyclable and compostable materials and the minimization of disposables. For example, starting this week, in collaboration with AMSA, we will activate a study to eliminate disposable cups. We will ask the public to buy a glass, and to return it at the end of the event so that they can get it back each time they return to the Ex Macello - an ambitious bet for a place that holds 4,000 people at once. Inclusion is another crucial aspect, events are planned with associations dealing with disability, gender equality and the LGBTQIA+ community with whom we are planning aggregative recreational activities and cultural education.

How does the program of activities represent an opportunity to build a relationship with the citizens of Milan?

In addition to what has already emerged in the previous answers, we are interested in highlighting that with the temporary activity in Ex Macello we have activated a platform available to the neighborhood, the city, the hinterland but also to all Italian and foreign tourists and stakeholders who visit or work in Milan during the year. This year we have activated a special focus in the relationship with the younger generations. Strategic from this point of view are the partnerships with Scomodo and Ape, two realities that manage to bring together so many young boys and girls both in moments of celebration and in moments of confrontation, discussion and collective growth.

Will the synergies among partners generated during this phase have a way to develop and grow also in a B phase of the project?

Talking about partners, first of all we would like to thank Redo sgr (developer of the area) and Fondazione Housing Sociale (leading all the placemaking of Aria Ex Macello), who wanted us by their side for this wonderful challenge. A project of this magnitude is allowing us to activate relationships on many levels, all of which are in their own way very important for rooting Ex Macello more and more into the social and cultural fabric of the city. Both in the hyper-territorial dimension and in the city dimension, but also on a national and international scale, we are building alliances and synergies in a very virtuous process of experimentation: we are in a real " urban laboratory " that is creating solid bases of mutual knowledge among all the actors in the field, which are invaluable for addressing and accompanying the various phases of transformation of the area. This dynamic is therefore fundamental for the present but even more so in a medium- and long-term perspective where opportunities will have to be seized but also critical issues addressed and resolved or virtuous compromises of collaboration built to serve a new neighborhood that is emerging. Returning to the present time, to this long summer of 2023, we are very keen to highlight how crucial it is for us to have found perfect partners in Ape, Botellon Milano, Le Cannibale, Scomodo who together with so many other cultural operators in the city are helping us to build programming of great quality and of great interest to so many people in the city and beyond.

What investments have you made and how is it possible to propose events or lease the area for commercial or cultural purposes?

Our effort was to activate a place that would be ready to welcome ideas, planning, cultural co-design with social impact or even simply private and corporate parties and events where people could feel good together; a safe place, a place that could take advantage of all the charm of a post-industrial archaeology space that people will only be able to see as it is now for a very short time more, before its final transformation; we strongly wanted to open to the city a place that is damn beautiful, unforgettable and magical because of its being so ephemeral. Our effort was to activate a place that would be ready to welcome ideas, planning, cultural co-design with social impact or even simply private and corporate parties and events where people could feel good together; a safe place, a place that could take advantage of all the charm of a post-industrial archaeology space that people will only be able to see as it is now for a very short time more, before its final transformation; we strongly wanted to open to the city a place that is damn beautiful, unforgettable and magical because of its being so ephemeral. We have given great importance to the lights, which are able to best enhance the space and the architecture during our night events. We put a lot of emphasis on the quality of the audio at the disposal of the artists and the audience we will welcome. We are very open to gathering ideas for cultural/artistic projects, and we strongly advise all entities in the city that organize public or private events not to miss the opportunity to live and let live a unique experience, which can never be repeated as it is today. This year or never again. You can visit our website and contact us by email and andrea.capaldi@maremilano.org and mario@pianob.it.