Milan Takes a Harder Line on Duplicate Images in Public Art Than Paris or London — But the Work Is Far From Done

Milan's Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio — the regional heritage authority that oversees public art in Lombardy — confirmed this spring that it had flagged more than 340 cases of duplicate image use across municipal murals, commemorative installations and publicly commissioned photography since January 2025. The number, drawn from an internal audit now in its second year, puts the city ahead of Rome in documented detections but behind a rigorous Berlin cleanup program that began in 2023.

The issue matters more right now than it did even two years ago. AI-assisted image generation and stock-library aggregation have made it dramatically easier for contractors and subcontractors to unknowingly — or deliberately — reuse protected or already-placed imagery. Cities that host major international events are especially exposed: rights disputes over duplicate images in public spaces can trigger injunctions that freeze installation projects entirely. With the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics infrastructure still being finalised across venues in northern Lombardy, the timing of this audit is not incidental.

Where Milan Is Acting — and Where It Isn't

The most visible remediation work is concentrated in two zones. Along Via Tortona in the Zona Tortona design district — home to Superstudio and dozens of creative studios — the city's Cultura Milano office has been working since March 2026 with local agencies to replace seven confirmed duplicate photographic prints used in permanent public display cases installed during Salone del Mobile 2024. In Porta Nuova, the Coima Image-managed development that hosts the Unicredit Tower, at least four wayfinding panels using images later found to be replicated from a Frankfurt transit project are scheduled for physical replacement before August.

What the city has not yet tackled is its older stock — commemorative plaques and neighbourhood identity boards installed before 2018, when digital provenance tracking was largely absent from municipal procurement contracts. The Municipio 1 central district alone has an estimated backlog of unaudited installations stretching back to the early 2000s, according to documentation reviewed by The Daily Milan from the city's public contract register.

Compare this with London, where the Greater London Authority launched its Visual Asset Integrity Framework in late 2022. By the end of 2025, Transport for London had replaced or re-licensed imagery across more than 600 installations at a reported programme cost of £4.2 million. Paris, ahead of its own post-Olympics consolidation, centralised image rights management through its Délégation à l'Action Artistique in 2023, cutting duplicate detections in new commissions by roughly 60 percent within 18 months, according to figures published by the Mairie de Paris in April 2026. Milan has no equivalent single-authority clearinghouse yet, a structural gap that heritage and design procurement specialists have noted in trade publications including Domus and Abitare.

What Comes Next for Contractors and the Public

The Comune di Milano's public works directorate is expected to publish updated procurement guidelines before the end of July 2026 that will require all new public art and wayfinding commissions above €15,000 to include a provenance certificate for every image used. That threshold, lower than the current €25,000 trigger for full rights documentation, is meant to catch the mid-range installation contracts that have historically slipped through without scrutiny.

For Milanese designers and agencies who work on public commissions, the practical shift means building image audits into project timelines from the outset — not treating them as an afterthought before sign-off. Studios operating out of the Brera design district and along Corso Garibaldi, where many smaller civic contractors are based, will need to budget for third-party provenance checks that can cost between €800 and €2,500 per project, depending on the volume of images involved.

Whether the updated guidelines pass without amendment through the Giunta Comunale — where centre-left Mayor Beppe Sala's administration must still negotiate with Lombardy's centre-right regional government on any spending that touches regionally co-funded infrastructure — will determine how quickly the new rules reach the venues that need them most. The Olympic clock is ticking either way.