LABORATORI POLITECNICI departments | territory | teaching | technology

Photograph ©hanninen

There is an invisible world that pulses every day within the laboratories of the Politecnico di Milano. Spaces of ingenuity, experimentation, and meticulous gestures, where students, researchers, technicians, and professors transform ideas into action, form, and solutions.

The exhibition LABORATORI POLITECNICI – departments | territory | education | technology, curated by Roberto Dulio with photographs by Giovanni Hänninen, was created to tell the story of this living, technical universe through the evocative power of the gaze. The photographs do not merely capture instruments and technologies, but also what usually escapes notice: the details, the spaces built for thinking, experimenting, and testing.

Spaces dense with life, experience, and knowledge, where science engages with the challenges of the present and opens up to infinite worlds and possibilities. Because a laboratory is not just a physical place—it goes beyond any intellectual boundary, forming an ecosystem where research intertwines with education, innovation with society, thought with technique.

Laboratories are not only containers of education and research: they preserve the memory of over 160 years of innovation. They have been crossed by historical figures such as Giulio Natta and Gio Ponti, and at the same time they are projected into the future. They are places that testify to daily work, the construction of knowledge, and the constant drive toward the new.

The diversity of disciplines corresponds to a variety of spaces—each one an expression of the specific identities of the Departments and Territorial Campuses, and of the deep connection between the Politecnico di Milano and its urban, national, and international context. In these environments, time itself can be read: from traditional Milanese cement tiles to modern resin floors, to the vaulted ceilings of underground rooms, where the stability of the ground supports complex experiments.

This exhibition is an invitation to discover what happens behind the scenes of innovation. To be surprised by the beauty and details of research. To perceive, in each image, the collective passion that shapes the knowledge that grows, is passed on, and constantly transforms.

Photographs by Giovanni Hänninen

Project: Area Campus Life, Politecnico di Milano

Curated by Roberto Dulio

Dates and places

From September 9th, 2025 – Biblioteca Storica

From September 23rd – Spazio Mostre Archivi Storici

From October 2nd – Biblioteca Bovisa La Masa

From October 20th to 31st – Biblioteca Polo Territoriale di Mantova

From November 3rd to 14th – Biblioteca Polo Territoriale di Cremona

From November 17th to 28th – Biblioteca Polo Territoriale di Piacenza

From December 1st to 12th – Biblioteca Polo Territoriale di Lecco