Pirelli HangarBiccoca

Pirelli HangarBicocca is a non-profit foundation born in Milan in 2004 from the conversion of an industrial plant into an institution devoted to the promotion and production of contemporary art.
One of the largest spaces in Europe, with its 15.000 sqm Pirelli HangarBicocca is a dynamic place for experimentation and research, featuring major solo exhibitions by today’s leading Italian and international artists. Each project is conceived in close relation with the unique characteristics of the space and is accompanied by a program of collateral events.
The building was formerly a factory that manufactured train carriages. The complex is comprised of different areas – a reading room, a bookshop and a space for educational workshops – and three exhibition spaces in which all the original architectural elements are visible:

Shed, built in the 1920s; Navate, an area once used to assemble and test high-powered electrical machinery, erected between 1963 and 1965; and Cubo, built in the 1950s to test electric turbine engines.
As well as its exhibitions program and cultural events, Pirelli HangarBicocca also permanently houses one of Anselm Kiefer’s most important site specific works, The Seven Heavenly Palaces 2004-2015, commissioned for the opening of Pirelli HangarBicocca. The entrance garden is also the permanent location of a large-scale sculpture by Fausto Melotti, La Sequenza (1981).
Pirelli HangarBicocca is an internationally oriented project that reflects Pirelli’s corporate culture and its engagement with research, innovation and the dissemination of contemporary languages. Entry is free of charge and gallery guides are present to encourage dialogue between the public and the artwork.