That’s not a typo in the headline. It’s a song title, from the (now split up) Italian rap duo Article 31. The song always pops into my head whenever I’m walking around that city I first heard the song while on a reporting trip back in, maybe, 2002? It kind of goes with the street rhythm, which is sort of like New York with a Latin beat.

I went up to Milan to be part of a week of events for lawyers organized by my friends at Legalcommunity. Despite the English name, the place is staffed mostly by Italians, and they put together a bunch of news websites, and not only for lawyers. They’ve expanded to the finance and food industries. (I put together the U,S. version of a site for company lawyers.) My colleagues there are young and enthusiastic and they do an amazing job, considering how few of them there are.

The week was rather more fun than anything that workaholic Americans might put together. Sure, there were substantive panel discussions, and I moderated a couple of them. But besides the Serious Legal Stuff, the  LC staff took people to a concert at La Scala, organized a run, brought bands from law firms together for a battle of the bands and held a gala awards dinner. At the battle of the bands, at this venue called Fabrique, my colleagues all wore black t-shirts saying “Rock the Law.” I want one. Ok, Aldo?

MC Nicola doing his bit

As for the city itself, I like spending a few days there when I can. It’s not a touristy city, and its inhabitants work and play hard. I have a good crew of friends and colleagues to visit when I’m there. I had a little time to sneak out and visit places I like, or I’m told I would like. One of them is the Fondazione Prada, far from the posh city center. The site incorporates some old light-industry buildings with some new structures by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. The melding of old and new structures just made me smile. One of the buildings is encased in this metallic swirly stuff, and one has huge mirrors as siding. An old building, that served as a “haunted house” exhibit with works by the likes of Louise Bourgeois, was painted glossy gold, light at the top, darker at ground level.

Then there’s the bar. In Italy, a bar is an all-purpose cafe, the kind of place where you stop in on your way to work to have a coffee and a cornetto (the Italian equivalent of a croissant), later for a snack or another espresso, a pick me up later in the day, and so on. The Fondazione’s version is called Bar Luce (light), and it was designed by none other than the film director Wes Anderson. He took Milan’s Viennese kaffeehaus vibe and ran with it. Think of it as the bar equivalent of The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Wes Anderson’s idea of a Milanese bar

The other place I went off to was just a few blocks from my hotel, the redevelopment of the area around Porta Nuova. I’m of two minds about these projects. Porta Nuova is a rupture of the city fabric. Milan has this kind of Austrian vibe in places. No surprise there; it was part of Austria until Italian unification in the mid-19th century.  At the same time, it’s fun to look at and walk through. The Porta Nuova complex is over a rail yard, and it’s an architectural and environmental showcase. The centerpiece is the Torre Unicredit, a skyscraper designed for the bank by César Pelli. On one side, there’s a green area that a couple of years featured a wheat field. I’m not sure what happened with that, but now it’s a tree refuge; they’ve planted a bunch of varieties.

Keeping with the green theme are two apartment buildings called the Bosco Verticale, or vertical forest. The sides of the buildings have trees and other vegetation growing out of them. I saw them right after their construction and the greenery was definitely in the sapling stage. They look a lot more grown in now.

The Bosco Verticale

Speaking of green, I’m back home in Umbria. It’s so green this year, it’s almost psychedelic. The sheep next door came to visit, and at one point, they just decided to chill right below our lawn (the property is terraced). Hey, if they eat the grass, terrific. Maybe we’ll get some great pecorino one of these days.,