The Garden and the Art Pavilion
The Garden of Fondazione Luigi Rovati is an eco-sustainable, intimate and elegant pocket garden. The project was designed by Marilena Baggio, architect and landscape designer, and aims to give back to the city a private space for public use where one can pause, chat, meditate and be inspired by the beauty of the ancient world of Etruscan craftsmanship and contemporary Milanese art and cosmopolitanism.
In the project to restore the garden, which is subject to landscape protection, the existing historical tree species are preserved in harmony with new plant and vegetative grafts identifying the Milanese garden landscape by Piermarini and Pollack. At first glance, the garden does not show itself in its entirety: only as you walk through it do you reveal small corners defined by shrubs and undergrowth beds that give it polychromy and liveliness. In the spring–summer season, the soft, soothing colours of white blossoms and shades of green predominate; in winter, red and yellow hues light up in seemingly bare spots, contrasting with the façade of the Palazzo.
The tree species are represented by limes, hackberry trees, beech trees and magnolias; the shrub species by hydrangeas, dwarf nandine, camellias, azaleas, rhododendrons, dogwood, honeysuckle and Japanese sedge. The herbaceous plan consists of acidophiles convallaria japonica, hellebores and vinca. The rustic Festuca arundinacea lawn creates a green, compact, low-maintenance, drought-resistant turf.
Like the building, the garden also meets the parameters of the LEED protocol certification and received the international GOLD LEED certification in February 2023.
The Fondazione Luigi Rovati free exhibitions come to life in the Art Pavilion nestled in the garden, a space that is renewed with each project to accommodate different exhibition needs, each time becoming a new experience to be discovered.
