The single best piece of Liberty (Italian Art Nouveau) architecture in Milan, built in 1903–05 by Giovanni Battista Bossi for the Galimberti brothers. The facade is a riot of polychrome ceramic tiles — sinuous female figures, garlands, and floral panels in the manner of Alphonse Mucha — wrapped around wrought-iron balconies whose railings twist like plant stems.
It stands on a quiet corner of the Porta Venezia district, where the early-1900s building boom left a concentration of Liberty apartment houses unmatched elsewhere in the city. You can only see it from the street, but the street is the point: a few minutes spent reading the tiled panels, then a wander through the surrounding blocks — Via Malpighi, Via Sirtori, Via Frisi — turns up balcony after balcony of the same period. Architecture-spotters should bring a camera.