Gateway to heaven

Part of a Milan Province drive to promote contemporary and above all youthful art is the “Porta Celeste” at Milan’s Parco Nord. Two teachers at the Brera Academy, Marco Pellizzola and Fabio Zanzotto, are behind this ceramic mosaic-work project which involves Academy students, schoolchildren, volunteers and Parco Nord habitués. A large mosaic design based on the heavenly constellations now adorns a cement supporting column of the pedestrian/cycle track link from Parco Nord to Sesto San Giovanni, and thus forms a symbolic gateway to the park. The decoration runs on at ground level, while tiles designed by students have also been used to embellish wooden benches lining an adjacent park lane. The ceramic tiles were provided by Sant’Agostino, while Mapei’s contribution was to supply adhesive materials and a team of specialists to oversee the work. The vertical mosaics were stuck by Keraflex adhesive and grouted with Ultracolor Plus. For the horizontal part a concrete pad was laid with Keraflex but bad weather made it necessary to set up sheets of web-backed mosaic in the laboratory using Keralastic. The sheets were later applied in situ with Keraflex and grouted with Ultracolor Plus. The metal shooting stars across the top of the pillar in golden vitreous mosaic were stuck on with Kerapoxy Design and grouted using a mixture of Kerapoxy Design and Mapeglitter. The mosaic tiles adorning the benches were applied by Keralastic and grouted with Kerapoxy Design.

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