In Milan, few landmarks are as recognizable as the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Steps from the Duomo, the 19th-century arcade, built between 1865 and 1877, is a masterpiece of neo-Renaissance design, crowned by a soaring glass-and-iron dome and lined with mosaic floors, historic cafés, and luxury boutiques. Locals call it the salotto di Milano—“the city’s drawing room”—a place to meet for coffee or an aperitivo, to see and be seen, or simply to pass beneath its vaulted roof.
Now there’s a new way to experience it: Highline Milano, a 820-foot skywalk set 130 feet above ground, tracing the rooftops from Piazza della Scala to Piazza del Duomo.
The elevated path reopened on February 7, timed to the start of the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics. Developed using former maintenance walkways, it’s part of a broader restoration led by an under-35 collective of architects and cultural producers that aims to reactivate the Galleria’s long-overlooked upper levels.
The walkway itself isn’t entirely new. First unveiled as a special attraction for Expo 2015, it welcomed visitors until 2019, when its doors closed. Four years later, in 2023, the city government issued a municipal tender—a public call inviting private operators to submit proposals to manage and revitalize the space. When the team behind Highline Milano (unrelated to New York City’s High Line) won the bid, they chose not simply to reopen it, but to rethink it.
“We wanted to create a secret walk on the rooftops of the galleria,” says Matteo Occhipinti, Highline Milano’s head of creativity. “But also a new landmark, a cultural and sustainable hub.”
Views of the Piazza del Duomo from the new Highline Milano.
Courtesy of Highline Milano
That ambition shapes the experience from the outset. A slow elevator ride carries visitors to the sixth floor, where the city gradually opens up before them. From there, the walk unfolds along the rooftops, punctuated by panels tracing the galleria’s history and decoding Milan’s skyline.
More than 200 shrubs from 20 species, carefully selected for their ability to withstand wind, sun, and shifting temperatures, line the route, creating a small rooftop habitat amid the steel and stone. A low-energy lighting system has been put in place to reduce consumption, while a solar installation—among the first added to a historic monument in Milan—helps to power the space. Newly introduced terraces known as the “Clouds” also punctuate the path, framed by more greenery and soft-seating areas that invite you to pause and take in the view.
The storytelling has been reimagined as well. Instead of the usual museum-style experience, with a formal, fact-by-fact audio guide, a free cinematic audio narrative (available in six languages) accompanies the walk. Written as a script by two young Italian screenwriters and performed by professional actors, it blends layered voices and sound effects into an immersive chronicle of the galleria’s construction and evolution, playing out more like a short audio documentary than an academic tool.
“We didn’t want the classic university-lecture audio guide,” Occhipinti says, “but something immersive. This is a monument that has witnessed 150 years of Italian history. It felt right to honor that legacy while projecting it into the present.”
That dialogue between past and present continues in Highline’s most significant addition: the Sala degli Orologi (Clocks’ Room), at the end of the skywalk, which is now open to the public for the first time in the galleria’s history.
The Sala degli Orologi (Clocks’ Room) at the end of the skywalk is a newly opened exhibition space.
Courtesy of Highline Milano
Once home to Milan’s Central Clock—a mechanical device installed in 1932 that synchronized the city’s public timepieces—the room still houses the original mechanism. Today, though, it’s been turned into an exhibition venue dedicated to emerging artists.
On view through May is the inaugural show, The Heart of Milan Between Past, Present, and Future, tracing the evolution of Milan’s historic center through archival photography from the Touring Club Italiano, a historical nonprofit institution devoted to safeguarding Italy’s artistic and environmental heritage. Ten of those images have been reinterpreted by young artists from the Accademia di Brera, Milan’s chief fine-art school, selected through an open call.
“Every detail of the Highline has been conceived not as a passive display of heritage, but as an active one,” says curator and artistic director Flavio Di Renzo. “We’ve approached it as a living space that continues to generate culture.”
To that end, the team is planning a year-round cultural calendar that will include open-air cinema shows, talks, and performances, so that the rooftop remains in constant dialogue with the city below.
Still, it’s the panorama that ultimately steals the show. The route culminates on a terrace long hidden atop the galleria’s facade, offering a privileged perspective of the Duomo and its gilded Madonnina. A new glass elevator, another addition to the galleria, makes the rooftop fully accessible, linking historic architecture with contemporary design.
From this perch, Milan reveals itself in layers: the cathedral’s marble spires at eye level, Piazza del Duomo below, and, on clear days, a faint view of the Alps rising in the distance.
“The Highline doesn’t just display what has been,” Occhipinti says. “It’s a reflection on what could be.”
How to access Highline Milano
Highline Milano is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (closed on Mondays). Standard tickets are €15 (US$17.67) and can be purchased either online in advance at tickets.highlinegalleria.it or on-site during opening hours, subject to availability. Entries are capped, so booking ahead is recommended.
