Design on the road
© Marco Ghezzi (THE PACK Italia) – Francesca Caltagirone | Some journeys start with a destination; others start with an idea. This time the idea was to bring together a few seemingly unrelated elements, design, art and electric mobility, in a tour that took us from Milan to Bergamo. A day spent among museums, repurposed industrial architecture and art installations, with a few great roads through the Bergamo hills saved for last.
Our travel companion was the BMW CE 04, a scooter whose modern lines and bold styling have made design its defining feature. It wasn’t a random choice: given the theme of the trip, it would have been hard to find a more fitting vehicle. But we also wanted to answer a practical question. Can a scooter like the CE 04, essentially built for the city, venture further and take on a longer route over open roads and hills without any worries? The short answer is yes. With a real-world range of around 110 km and, above all, a Type 2 charging socket that lets you use public AC charging points at 2.3 kW, or up to 6.9 kW with the optional fast charger, the CE 04 is more than happy to head out of town. It does take some planning, and charging has to be treated as part of the trip. Our route of roughly 140 km needed just one 20-minute top-up stop. Just enough time for a good coffee.
At the home of the Compasso D’Oro
We set off from Milan, where our first stop is the ADI Design Museum, home of the Compasso d’Oro. The museum occupies the restored spaces of the former Ansaldo industrial site and tells a key part of the story of Italian design through objects, projects and documents.
The Compasso d’Oro Historical Collection now holds more than 2,300 award-winning products and projects. And the Compasso d’Oro is no ordinary award. Created in 1954 from an idea by Giò Ponti and Alberto Rosselli, it is considered the oldest and most authoritative prize dedicated to Italian design. Its philosophy is to reward the synthesis of function, aesthetics and innovation, giving rise to exceptional objects capable of changing everyday life. Just as the BMW CE 04 has done.
Parked in front of the museum, proudly showing off its distinctive, futuristic lines and top-tier technology for the electric two-wheeler sector, it almost looks like a piece that just rolled out of one of the galleries. Inside, other objects stir up memories, in a continuous discovery that builds with every room.
In one corner stands the Sfera from 1991, one of Piaggio’s first attempts at a modern scooter with a strong focus on design, comfort and technical innovation. In another we spot the Tender from 1988, a folding moped that looks like the ancestor of today’s e-scooters. Then there’s the legendary Olivetti Lettera 22, the typewriter on which I wrote my very first articles. And finding an Enel X charging station on display is a real surprise.
From ‘Gold’ to Gres
A quick hop to Bergamo brings us to GRES ART 671, riding our CE 04 beneath huge steel silos that, like unlikely sentinels, watch us enter this regenerated former industrial site.
This is the Gres di San Bernardino complex, where stoneware ceramic materials were produced from the late 19th century until the mid-1970s. The industrial architecture has been reinterpreted, and in place of the old factory stands a contemporary space where art, architecture, culture and social life coexist.
It is one of Bergamo’s most interesting urban regeneration projects, and the complex is organised into several areas. Galleria 671 is the exhibition heart, hosting contemporary art shows, followed by the inner garden, a kind of green square carved out of the industrial site, designed for stopping, meeting and enjoying the space.
And of course there’s the Gres Café, which rounds off the idea of a place worth visiting even without an exhibition on. Parked in front of the café’s golden pavilion, we soak up a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere.
Not just the city
Coming to Bergamo without heading up to Città Alta and the Colli would be a real shame, so off we go on this unplanned detour. The tarmac starts to follow the contours of the hills, and within a few kilometres the scenery changes completely. Traffic thins out and the roads become narrower and twistier. Gentle bends and short climbs and descents alternate between woods, small hamlets and houses tucked into the greenery.
It’s a route that seems made for a motorcycle, and the BMW CE 04 is performing brilliantly, even in an environment slightly outside its comfort zone.
The instant response of the electric motor and the ever-available torque make corner exits and the constant changes of pace a pleasure, while the absence of engine noise lets us slip “on tiptoe” through the quiet little lanes, taking in all the charm of a slightly different side of Bergamo.
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