Palazzo Citterio has opened and, with this historic opening, what Franco Russoli – visionary director of the Brera Art Gallery from 1957 to 1977 – had called “La Grande Brera” is born.
The 18th-century Palazzo Fürstenberg, later known as Palazzo Citterio, was acquired by the State in 1972, the year in which the then Superintendents Gian Alberto Dell’Acqua and Franco Russoli dreamed of a place that would allow the museum to grow with 20th-century art. Finally, 52 years later, the dream has become reality. The public will thus be able to visit a space that had been closed for decades and has now been returned to the city, a museum that will house the Jesi and Vitali collections, more than 200 works that include masterpieces of Italian and international art – Carrà, Morandi, Boccioni, Modigliani, Picasso, Braque – and that will be the venue for important exhibitions of modern and contemporary art.
The Director General of the Pinacoteca di Brera, Palazzo Citterio and the Braidense Library, Angelo Crespi, has launched a new project with major structural consolidation work on part of the building, improvements to the museum’s HVAC systems, and the creation of the layouts in continuity with the Superintendency’s restoration work. The work, which began in June, was completed on 31 October. During this phase, architect Mario Cucinella collaborated, while the art historians and curators were able to take advantage of an innovative technological tool: the augmented reality of the NOOR software, which made it possible to pre-visualise the positioning of the works of art and allow a real-time assessment of the exhibition spaces.
On the piano nobile is a large room in continuity with the Pinacoteca, in which Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo’s Fiumana is exhibited, and from here the two collections depart: one facing Via Brera, the Jesi, the other facing the garden, the Vitali. Curated by Marina Gargiulo, art historian in charge of the Brera Art Gallery’s 20th century collections, the main floor will display absolute masterpieces of the Italian and international 20th century, from Boccioni to Modigliani, from Morandi to Picasso. With the aim of further enriching the corpus of 20th-century works, the Pinacoteca has directly acquired in recent decades a substantial number of masterpieces by great masters such as Picasso, de Chirico, Savinio, Campigli, Cassinari, Melotti and de Pisis, destined to be exhibited in Citterio’s rooms.
For his intervention, architect Mario Cucinella was inspired by the concepts of inclusiveness and dialogue of the Palazzo with the city. Starting from the courtyard, a wooden pavilion in the form of a small circular temple has been created, a connecting point between the exterior and the various rooms of the Grande Brera, offering visitors a covered space where they can sit and rest. Donated by Salone del Mobile Milano, the ‘Tempietto’, inspired by Bramante, dialogues with the Pinacoteca, drawing inspiration from Raphael’s work The Marriage of the Virgin.
On the second floor, from 8th December 2024 to 9th March 2025, the exhibition “La Grande Brera. A community of arts and sciences”. Curated by Luca Molinari, the exhibition tells the story of the architecture and communities that have inhabited the Brera building since 1500.
Arranged by architect Francesco Librizzi, it is organised in three distinct areas: an introductory part on the Great Brera, a long section on the architectural history of the Brera building and Palazzo Citterio, and a third area that tells these stories together, as if it were a rich landscape in which community, experimentation, creation, memory and education are remixed to offer the visitor a sense of the profound and ongoing richness of the heart of Milan.
On the occasion of this exhibition, from 12th December 2024 to 15th March 2025, the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense will offer the public an exhibition entitled “La Grande Brera in Braidense”, which tells its own story through its holdings, accompanying the exhibition, for the first time, with a rich correspondence from its historical archive.
The hypogeum of Palazzo Citterio will host from 8th December 2024 to 23rd March 2025 the exhibition “Mario Ceroli. La forza di sognare ancora”, curated by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi, which includes 10 monumental, site-specific unpublished works, executed in the last year by the artist specifically for the space designed by James Stirling in the 1950s. In the context of Palazzo Citterio, Ceroli confirms wood as his archetypal material of choice, and sculpture as his primary accomplice.
For the inauguration, thanks to a collaboration agreement between Brera, MNAD (National Museum of Digital Art), and MEET Digital Culture Center, part of the Architecture Chapter of the work Renaissance Dreams by Refik Anadol, one of the world’s most famous digital artists, is presented. The installation will be hosted from 7 December 2024 to 30 March 2025 in the ledwall at the entrance of Palazzo Citterio.
For more information visit www.palazzocitterio.org.
