Historic gardens are often appreciated for what you can see: bright florals, rich greens, and winding pathways. At Portrait Milano, the luxury hotel housed within Milan’s former Archiepiscopal Seminary, Arcipelago Botanico by Italian artist Agostino Iacurci instead draws inspiration from what has disappeared. A vibrant new landscape blooms in the memory of the site’s historic gardens.
Photography courtesy of Lungarno Collection.
On view through Aug. 31, 2026, the site-specific installation transforms the hotel’s 16th-century central piazza into a dreamlike environment anchored by eight monumental sculptures. Iacurci reimagines the Seminary’s original gardens through oversized botanical forms that stand like contemporary totems among arcaded colonnades and a landscape conceived with botanist Vittorio Peretto.
Known for his graphic murals and sculptural installations, Iacurci’s handcrafted forms introduce fantastical flora rendered in saturated hues of fuchsia, magenta, orange, green, and purple. Each sculpture rises from a restrained geometric plinth, creating a visual rhythm that balances exuberant color with architectural order while echoing the ornamental traditions of historic Italian gardens.
Photography courtesy of Lungarno Collection.
Curated by Valentina Ciarallo, the installation functions as a playful archipelago of imagined vegetation. More than a traditional sculpture exhibition, it becomes an immersive conversation between history, landscape, and architecture.
Photography courtesy of Lungarno Collection.
What makes Arcipelago Botanico particularly compelling is its treatment of memory as a design material. Rather than preserving history through replication, Iacurci embraces interpretation, using simplified forms and bold color to evoke the atmosphere of a place rather than its exact appearance. The installation acknowledges the site’s past while resisting nostalgia, proposing instead that contemporary art can offer new ways of understanding historic environments.
It’s also part of a broader evolution in adaptive reuse. Increasingly, historic hotels, museums, and public buildings are becoming platforms for temporary installations that invite visitors to experience familiar architecture differently. Here, contemporary sculpture doesn’t merely occupy the courtyard—it activates it, transforming a place of passage into one of pause, discovery, and reflection.
Italian artist Agostino Iacurci with his site-specific installation, Arcipelago Botanico. Photography courtesy of Lungarno Collection.
Throughout the summer, Arcipelago Botanico anchors Portrait Milano’s annual “Portraits of an Italian Summer” program, which includes concerts, design collaborations, wellness events, and botanical-inspired experiences in an extension of the installation’s themes. While those events extend the experience, the installation stands on its own as a thoughtful intersection of public art, landscape design, and historic preservation.
Arcipelago Botanico is on view at Portrait Milano in Milan, Italy, through Aug. 31, 2026, with free public access via Corso Venezia 11 and Via Sant’Andrea 10.
Editorial Transparency: This article was developed with the assistance of AI tools, which may have been used for research, outlining, editing, or copy refinement. Reporting, fact-checking, and editorial decisions were made by the Design Milk editorial team.
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