Porta Genova: The Genesis of Movimento Metropolitano

When our Founder, Andrea Rasca, first created the original Mercato Metropolitano in Milan, his vision was not just a regenerative community market, but a movement rooted in the profound belief that food is a catalyst for urban regeneration. Andrea’s conviction is that the revitalisation of our cities must come from within—powerfully echoed in books like Ryan Gravel’s Where We Want to Live, which speaks to reclaiming our right to shape the places where we live.

The Vision: Reclaiming Urban Relics

In 2015, whilst the official Milan Expo focused on 'Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life', Andrea offered something radically different. He created a five-month 'anti-junk food expo', a successful example of breathing new life into a forgotten urban space. Rasca transformed the derelict, 15,000 square-metre Porta Genova train station and warehouse into a temporary community food market—a vibrant social space delivering fresh produce from small food artisans, local producers, and farmers.

This initiative was a manifesto against industrial food systems and globalised junk food, celebrating craftsmanship, healthy ingredients, and community instead.

Culture, Dignity, and Belonging

This regenerative act proved that forgotten urban places instantly transform into living ecosystems. It was this success, demonstrating the principles of reclaiming urban space as advocated by Gravel, that brought Andrea Rasca to reflect on the wider philosophy in one of his recent LinkedIn posts:

‘It brought me back to when I opened the very first Mercato Metropolitano in Milan... We transformed a derelict, abandoned train station into a thriving community hub. Not just a market—but a social space. Not just food—but culture, dignity, and belonging.’

The revitalisation of Porta Genova proved the goal was to reclaim and regenerate the urban fabric from within. It was a message to everyone—city councils, mayors, citizens—that forgotten places could be turned into living ecosystems by uniting people who care for how and where they live, perfectly reflecting our MoM ethos of connecting food, health, and community.

As Andrea concluded in his recent post: ‘We don’t need to wait for permission to make cities better—we just need to reclaim them, and regenerate them from within.’

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