A large urban park spreading behind the Castello Sforzesco on the north-western edge of central Milan, Parco Sempione is the most central of the major public parks of the city, covering thirty-nine hectares of lawns, mature trees and ornamental water features. The park was laid out between 1888 and 1894 on what had been the parade ground of the Castello, by the architect Emilio Alemagna in a romantic English landscape style. The park takes its name from the Strada del Sempione, the road built by Napoleon over the Simplon Pass in the early nineteenth century to link Milan and Paris through the western Alps. The Arch of Peace at the north-western end of the park, designed in 1807 by Luigi Cagnola and inaugurated in 1838, was originally conceived as a triumphal arch on the new Napoleonic route from France. The principal features of the park include an artificial pond with curving paths winding around it, an Alpine-style mountain hut serving food and drink, the Sempione Arena designed in 1807 as a Roman-style amphitheatre for chariot races and now used for concerts, and the modern aluminium-clad Branca Tower designed by Gio Ponti for the 1933 Triennale. The tower, more than a hundred metres tall, can be ascended for a panoramic view across the city. The Triennale di Milano, the international exhibition of design and decorative arts founded in 1923, has its permanent home in the Palazzo dell Arte at the southern edge of the park. The institution mounts continuous exhibitions on contemporary design, architecture and the applied arts, and the surrounding gardens are scattered with major outdoor sculptures from the various editions of the international design fair. The park is heavily used by Milanese residents throughout the year. Joggers, cyclists, dog walkers, picnicking families and lunchtime office workers fill the grounds on warmer days, with the broad avenues converging on the central fountain and the various pavilions and bars dotted around the perimeter. Outdoor concerts in summer and a regular schedule of events through the year keep the park busy on evenings and weekends. Reached easily from the metro stops at Cadorna and Lanza, and bordered on the south by the Cairoli stop directly opposite the Castello Sforzesco, the park offers a green counterweight to the densely built-up streets of the historic centre and, with the great mass of the Castello at one end and the Arco della Pace at the other, frames one of the most striking long perspectives in Milan.

Type: Outdoors

Address: Piazza Sempione 1, Milan, Italy

Opening Date: 01/01/1894