It all began with history’s biggest mistake: deciding to sleep in Bologna to save on the cost of rooms in Milan, notoriously more expensive than a week in a 5-star hotel in Dubai. So, one morning, fortified with patience and caffeine, we got on a bus headed to the home of design. The first day took off like a rocket: four hours on the road instead of two, two accidents on the highway, and a festival of curse words in dialect that outperformed the Viareggio Carnival. Ivan and Gennaro competed for the title of “dialect wordmaster,” challenging each other with the purest Bolognese and the most colorful Neapolitan, but the traffic just didn’t care. Meanwhile, Ajar slept like an angel, immune to the chaos around her: we wondered if she had a secret switch that put her in energy-saving mode as soon as she got on the bus. We then decided to change strategy and take the train. Deluded. Trenitalia immediately confirmed its wonderful sense of humor, delaying even the announcements in the station. Then, the punchline: a broken-down train forced everyone – including us – to squirm into another one, already packed like sardines. So, we decided who would travel in a seat and who in the bathroom, an experience worthy of the best reality show. We finally arrived in Milan, Palazzo Litta (or Palazzo Latta, Palazzo Letta or Palazzo Lizza, according to our pronunciation “experts”) welcomed us with objects so precious that breaking one meant selling your home (and the neighbor’s, too), so we were extra-careful. Despite our initial terror, everything went surprisingly well, thanks to our fearless guides: Ajar, Gennaro, Pia, Rania, and Vincenzo.
There were some unforgettable moments: the elderly sighted woman who started to yell as soon as she was blindfolded, convinced that the blindfold would also make her deaf; the very devout man who invoked Saints and the Madonna as soon as it got dark; the blind girl on a mission: touch everything on display, even if it wasn’t part of the exhibit (the important thing was that it could be touched!). Meanwhile, the public parted before our white canes like the Red Sea, taking refuge against the walls and making weird superstitious gestures. Gennaro, our fine Neapolitan strategist, had discovered the Adrenalina sofa, a took a few stealthy naps, pretending to concentrate on reading mysterious inscriptions in Braille. Like true traveling salesmen, we managed to convince even the Director of Palazzo Litta and the women at the bar to try the blindfold experience, with great success. All of the staff, we included, were surprised by the project’s success and by the enthusiasm of the public, which included architects and designers from all over the world, interested in knowing more about us. A ton of questions! What did we bring home from Palazzo Litta, beyond chronic sore feet and an obvious allergy to trains and buses? The certainty of having discovered an unexplored world, fertile and full of opportunity, ready to open new horizons which, I’m sure, the Francesco Cavazza Institute for the Blind will be ready to do peerlessly.
Italiano
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