Bar Jamaica features in A tutte le ore (At All Hours), the podcast that maps out the places where Milan’s creativity took root.
Once upon a time there was a bar in Brera where, between the 1960s and 1970s, you’d arrive around five in the afternoon, order a bianchino (a glass of white wine), and start discussing an exhibition, hoping later to scrape together “la mille” — a thousand lire — to finish off the evening. That bar is Jamaica, and it’s one of the protagonists of A tutte le ore, the podcast that tells the story of the bars and clubs where twentieth-century creative Milan was shaped.
Passing through Jamaica, glass after glass, were figures like Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Dino Buzzati, Nanni Balestrini, Ugo Mulas, Uliano Lucas, Alfa Castaldi, Nanda Vigo, and Luciano Bianciardi. In the podcast, those years are recalled by Uliano Lucas, a photographer and protagonist of that era, alongside Ugo La Pietra.
The project
A tutte le ore. Milano tra arti, design e atmosfere creative (At All Hours. Milan between arts, design, and creative atmospheres) was born from a collaboration between the University of Milan and the Politecnico di Milano’s Design Department, as part of the PNRR CHANGES project. It tells the story of a Milan that was also shaped outside its institutions, in the venues where free time became creative time.
The research identified five symbolic places: Bar Craja, Santa Tecla, Bar Jamaica, Plastic, and Bar Basso. Around these, the project built three types of material:
- a podcast in five episodes, produced by Chora Media and written by Giulia Cavaliere, featuring the voices of those who actually lived those places;
- an interactive digital map, for exploring the venues and their traces, including nearby spots that have disappeared or are still active;
- a sound book, which combines text and voices with a preface by Ugo La Pietra, curated by Ilaria Bollati, Luisa Collina and Alberto Bentoglio.
It’s no surprise to anyone who spends time in Brera that Jamaica made the list of five: even today, the bar remains a fixed point in the neighborhood, open at all hours.
The other protagonists of the podcast
Besides Jamaica, the podcast moves through Bar Craja, Santa Tecla, Plastic, and Bar Basso — five stops different in era and atmosphere, but united by the same thread: places where creative projects were born without an appointment, over a drink and a conversation.
A tutte le ore can be listened to on the main podcast platforms, explored on the project’s digital map, and browsed as a sound book.
