This article examines the changing images of the city of Milan over a period of two decades spanning the 1980s and 1990s. The article considers theoretical debates concerning city images. Milan is then analysed through the various spatial forms which encompass this modern city – political space, populated space, geographic space, urban space and economic space. The next section assesses the changing images of the city through shifting historical phases and crises. Finally the article draws together the fundamental economic and social changes which have marked the deindustrialization and reinvention of Milan.