Art with Kids in Milan

This summer will take us to Switzerland (for only long enough to allow us a swim in an Alpine lake), to Italy (Milan, Bergamo and Venice), to Lithuania (Vilnius), to the Latvian countryside (near Daugavpils) and to France (Saint-Remy de Provence, Les Landes – just above Biarritz and Bordeaux).  Here’s the first chapter : Milan. A guided visit…

Fondazione Prada opened on May 26, 2015. The stunning building complex is by Rem Koolhaas. There’s been lots of buzz regarding the bar, “Bar Luce” designed by Wes Anderson. A good trick to motivate children when they say “What? Another Museum?”. There is a good old juke box, 2 pin ball machines and the ice creams are to die for. After that, no resistance, no complains. The art and the layout are magnificent.

MUBA, the Children’s Museum at Rotonda della Besana. A relatively new place in town, it is dedicated to children with lots of activities, a nice store full of clever products and excellent books, and a very good bar where our girls shared a delicious freshly squeezed mango & carrot juice. There’s a scaled-down version of furniture and signage throughout. Little people are as much at home in this museum as their parents. The building is an architectural gem, itself worth a visit, especially at sunset.

Arts&Foods : Rituals Since 1851. It took friends of ours 4 hours to navigate this exhibit, so nourishing and rich it is. We had to make do with half the time due to our tight schedule. You can easily spend hours without noticing the time go by. Everything is interesting, for little ones and their parents, from the historical (such as the evolution of cutlery, plates and kitchen furniture, vintage coffee machines) to the modern and contemporary (with film extracts, a fully functional prefab house by Jean Prouvé,  art installations, advertisement, photography). Here again, there are scaled-down installations for easy orientation by the kids, and plenty of interactive, educational sites. This exhibit is a perfect way to awaken curiosity around design, and to spur thinking about vocations in both food and the arts.