It is September 12, 1946: in a Milan still suffering from the heavy bombings of the Second World War, the gates of the Fair were reopened, with 70% of the pavilions still completely destroyed.
From 12 April 1920 (when it was inaugurated with the name of Campionaria) until 1943 its activity had never stopped: on the contrary it had grown, moving from the temporary barracks on the Bastioni di Porta Venezia in the area of the former piazza d ‘ Armi, where, around Piazza Giulio Cesare, it had spread out in the form of a real city of traffic and trade, which Carlo Emilio Gadda aptly defined as a “cosmopolis”.
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It was the signal that the city was rising from its ruins, restarting the machinery of industry and commerce. The same signal, anticipated by a few months, from the La Scala theater, on whose stage – as everyone will remember – Arturo Toscanini opened the season on 11 May with a mythical concert that he wanted to convey to the world that Milan did not stop: indeed he raised his head , appealing to two strong points, culture and industry. A marriage sanctioned by the shared decision to carry out the Scala opera year at the Palazzo dello Sport, the first reconstructed pavilion, to remedy the inaccessibility of the Milanese theater. Necessity was transformed into virtue and, with the approval of Maestro Toscanini, “the greatest theater in the world” was provisionally born, under the banner of Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele, directed by Maestro Franco Ghione.
Comparing the pandemic to war is perhaps a hyperbole that not everyone will share: yet, once the times and the sensibilities of Italians have changed, it cannot be denied that this 2021 is a bit like the opportunity for a rebirth, the recovery after the devastating images of the silence of the lockdown, the joy and anger of the recovery after a year of blocking activities of all kinds, productive and cultural. With this spirit, the opening of the Salone del Mobile is expected as in the past spring was expected for an obligatory visit to the Fair: in fact both are much more than a showcase of products; they are entertainment, manifestations of sociability, sharing of different and distant cultures and geographies that pour thousands of visitors onto the streets of Milan who identify the Salone with the city and the city with renewing Italy.
It is a bet not without risks, but necessary not only to fill a void that was beginning to become excruciating, but above all to communicate to the world the vitality of a small metropolis that has an enormous reputation to defend.