Milan, Italy’s center for contemporary art, is packed with serious galleries—see Massimo de Carlo, a regular on the international fair circuit—as well as such newcomers as the hybrid gallery-studio Lucie Fontaine. Its deficiency in contemporary-art museums will soon be fixed: Rem Koolhaas is designing a building (due to open in 2012) for the 500-plus-works of Miuccia Prada, and the city has commissioned Daniel Libeskind to construct a five-floor museum (due in 2011). It’s no surprise that stylish Milan remains a design nexus, too. Recently the venerable firm Azucena made a storage space into a sparkling new HQ, a must-see during the 48th edition of the city’s annual furniture fair, April’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

"Hot Spot: Milan" originally appeared in the December 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's December 2008 Table of Contents.