24. Cenisio, Sarpi, Isola

This district consists of three well characterized areas: Sarpi, the Milanese Chinatown, with its frenetic multiethnicity conflated into the Milanese spirit by now; Isola, with its laboring and working-class past, nowadays it is toned down by the recent redevelopments; and Cenisio – or Simonetta – a mainly residential area full of services and conveniences for all the needs.

With a trading and productive past, this vast area close to the city centre has an essentially residential hallmark nowadays, also thanks to the good connections to the public transportation.

The colorful Sarpi frenzy with its historical and Oriental workshops, the Isola street art and the Cenisio Dèco hallmark offer to residents a different type of life, combining services and any type of convenience.

This area is meant for those who love living their own district, enjoying the social and cultural mix, the nightlife and restaurants for all budgets and tastes.

Here the cosmopolitan street food and the ethnic stores, like Kathay, are linked to well established historical workshops, like the Sirtori butcher shop, the Cantine Isola wine bar or Osteria Dal Verme.

In this area you will not find the design or fashion brands retail chains or franchisings, you will not find either big supermarkets with a driveway.

However, its weaknesses have become strengths: narrow streets that don’t allow the crazy Milanese traffic to spread; the tiny houses, mainly for rent and inhabited by young people, which give place to a great social and cultural mix; the market and the little and independent stores with their own identity, which offer more sincerity in the customer relationships.

The real estate offer mainly consists of banister houses with internal courtyards and historical factories, often transformed in lofts, and it includes also post-war buildings.

Recently some residential buildings with a more contemporary concept have been built, as a counterpoint to the homogeneous historical context.

This historical area has a well-established identity, but it is also oriented to the future thanks to regeneration interventions which are activating a strong change, supported by the good connection to the public transport system.

The area is situated close to Porta Nuova, with its tertiary and luxury residential centre, livened up by the Biblioteca degli Alberi big park. Architectural interventions of quality, like the Bosco Verticale and the new Fondazione Feltrinelli headquarter, play an important urban and public service role in order to revamp a part of the city.
The Parco Sempione, a green lung of the city centre, and the Arco della Pace, with many meeting points for young people, complete the offer for the free time.