Civic Planetarium of Milan, Planetarium in Porta Venezia Gardens, Milan, Italy
The Civic Planetarium of Milan, in the Porta Venezia Gardens, is an octagonal masonry building designed by Piero Portaluppi. A wide stone staircase leads to a tetrastyle Ionic portico of fluted columns without plinths, clad in marbles and natural stones such as ceppo di Albio, ceppo di Poltragno and Crevola d'Ossola marble. The interior projection hall, 19.6 metres across, lies under a hemispherical concrete dome whose base carries a profile of Milan as it was in 1930.
The planetarium was inaugurated on 20 May 1930, designed by architect Piero Portaluppi for publisher Ulrico Hoepli, who donated it to Milan during the ceremony. In 1943 the scientific instrument was dismantled and moved out of the city, and the building was damaged in Allied bombings that August. A 1954 renovation replaced the dome's inner canvas with perforated aluminium panels.
The planetarium is the seat of the Circolo Astrofili di Milano, an amateur astronomy club founded in 1932 whose members meet there twice a month on Wednesdays to present their sky observations. Since July 2016, public and school activities have been run by the association LOfficina under a municipal tender.
The facility schedules public talks from September through June on specific weekdays and weekends at different times. It is best to check ahead for current session times since programming varies with the season.
In 1943, caretaker Aldo Venturi saved the valuable projection equipment by hiding it in a church at a psychiatric hospital in Limbiate. This salvage effort allowed the planetarium to resume full operations after the war.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 93,518 contributors worldwide.
