ArchiMapping is a project to develop an app for personal devices that uses GPS to locate 100 outstanding examples of modern architecture in Milan, from the Unification of Italy until today. Buildings will be purposely selected to take in the entire urban area, and they will “tell the story” of the various districts and neighbourhoods, while also narrating the most significant issues confronted by modern architecture in responding to how the city and the lifestyle of its inhabitants have been evolving over time.

The ArchiMapping app will also come in English to appeal to a foreign public potentially interested in the subject. Users will be able to follow suggested “story trails” or build their own itineraries using external routing information, on the basis of preferences in logistics, architecture “authorship” or chronology. A brief description sheet will be prepared for each building in English and Italian containing historical and archive iconographic material, lists of useful references, links to websites and interesting videos on the topic.

This project is wide-ranging in its objectives. Alongside the wider general public, the app is expected to appeal to students at middle and upper secondary schools, institutes of art, universities, academies of design, architecture and visual communication, helping them to learn about their local area and understand its architecture and, more broadly, encourage people to recognise themselves and establish an identity within the places where they live. Additionally, the project is expected to be a catalyst for participatory initiatives to protect, promote and care for the built environment. ArchiMapping also intends to build the initial nucleus of a “diffused museum” of modern architecture, which can potentially be expanded in the future and extended to other cities or to Italy as a whole. This concept, which interestingly could tap into the possible spin-offs and offshoots emerging from a post-Covid economic relaunch, will put another spotlight on Italy’s cultural heritage, still vastly overlooked and undervalued.