Discovering Bicocca: 1450-2013.
A Journey through Time
The Bicocca district of Milan has amassed over five hundred years of history. It took its name from the aristocratic Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, a villa dating back to the mid-fifteenth century. Then Pirelli arrived in the early twentieth century and the countryside around the Bicocca became part of Milan, which gradually expanded around the factory.
This and much more emerged during the Discovering Bicocca event organised in 2013 by the Pirelli Foundation together with HangarBicocca, which illustrated the history, the life, and the transformation of this area. There were many events: a cycling treasure hunt, guided tours, film screenings, and an exhibition of original documents: all the treasures in the Pirelli Historical Archive were made available to the huge numbers of visitors, helping them retrace the story of how the Bicocca changed in the industrial and post-industrial age and opened up to what is now a new world of culture. And the Pirelli Foundation, a repository of the history and memory of both the places and the company, was the vehicle that took them on their journey through space and time.
