
Civico Planetario Ulrico Hoepli
Neoclassical octagonal planetarium with a false starry dome, seating three hundred beneath a projected sky.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Civico Planetario Ulrico Hoepli in Milan tells of custodian Venturi, who ran the planetarium from 1933 and made a quiet decision of his own when Milan came under threat of bombing in the war. It also traces the building's origin as a gift from bookseller Ulrico Hoepli, opened in 1930 and shaped by architect Piero Portaluppi into its octagonal drum seating three hundred beneath a false sky. Venturi and his family lived inside the building itself for forty years, in rooms now used as offices.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Poldi Pezzoli Museum
House-museum of a nineteenth-century noble collector, its gilded Renaissance-style hall rebuilt after wartime bombing destroyed it.
Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie
Renaissance dining hall holding Leonardo's Last Supper mural, saved by sandbags when wartime bombs destroyed the room around it.
Milan Natural History Museum
Neo-Romanesque museum of dinosaur casts and dioramas, rebuilt after a wartime fire.
Palazzo Reale di Milano
Neoclassical royal palace with a ballroom of forty caryatid statues, scarred by wartime bombing and left unrestored as a memorial.
Leonardo's Last Supper Museum
Fragile wall mural of Christ's final meal, painted in an experimental dry technique that began flaking within years.
Giardini Indro Montanelli
Landscaped park with a natural history museum, planetarium, and a bronze statue with a violent past.