Renaissance Dreams – Refik Anadol

During Milan Design Week 2026
Monday through Sunday – 10:00 AM–8:00 PM
MEET Digital Culture Center
Viale Vittorio Veneto 2, Milan

During Milan Design Week 2026, MEET Digital Culture Center once again establishes itself as the beating heart of the Porta Venezia Design District. This year’s theme, “Design is Act,” inspired by the vision of Tomás Maldonado, invites us to rediscover design as a conscious act capable of weaving together ethics, culture, and memory.

It is memory itself—vibrant and in constant transformation—that takes center stage in “Renaissance Dreams”, the permanent installation by Refik Anadol presented by MEET during Design Week. Here, the past is never static: it regenerates and reinvents itself.

Through artificial intelligence, paintings, sculptures, texts, and architecture from the Italian Renaissance take on new life. The data—drawn from centuries of history, spanning the 1300s to the 1600s—is reworked by GAN algorithms, giving rise to an immersive universe in constant metamorphosis: a flow of shapes, colors, and sounds that breathes, changes, and surprises.

The archive becomes an experience. Knowledge is no longer something static or distant, but becomes a sensitive, vibrant substance capable of evoking emotion.

The Italian Renaissance, rewritten by AI

For MEET’s Immersive Room, Refik Anadol has created a site-specific work that bridges the gap between eras. A vast dataset of Renaissance images and texts is reinterpreted to generate original content, where historical memory merges with algorithmic creativity.

“Renaissance Dreams” is divided into four chapters:

• Painting
• Sculpture
• Literature
• Architecture

In each of these, AI identifies invisible connections and hidden patterns, translating them into new forms of expression. Before the viewer’s eyes, familiar yet unprecedented visions unfold, like fragments of a lucid dream.

The result of years of work by Refik Anadol and his international team, “Renaissance Dreams” explores the intersection of media, science, and technology, giving rise to a radically new artistic language. Multidimensional forms, unprecedented volumes, and original sound design intertwine in a dynamic and immersive composition.