Itineraries Through Milan's Architecture

ORDINE DEGLI ARCHITETTI, FONDAZIONE DELL’ORDINE DEGLI ARCHITETTI, PIANIFICATORI, PAESAGGISTI E CONSERVATORI PIANIFICATORI, PAESAGGISTI E CONSERVATORI DELLA PROVINCIA DI MILANO DELLA PROVINCIA DI MILANO

/places the city through its parts

From the idea of the city to the built city: the Garibaldi-Repubblica area

Patrizio Antonio Cimino

PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS BY Simona Rosato

Itineraries through Milan’s architecture Modern architecture as description of a city “Itineraries through Milan’s architecture: Modern architecture as a description of a city” is a project by the Order of Architects, Planners, Landscape Architects and Conservators, edited by its Foundation.

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“From the idea of the city to the built city: the Garibaldi-Repubblica area” Patrizio Antonio Cimino, project descriptions by Simona Rosato edited by: Alessandro Sartori, Stefano Suriano, Barbara Palazzi

Images courtesy of: Civica Raccolta Stampe Achille Bertarelli CZA - Cino Zucchi Architetti

Translation: Maddalena Ferrara

A special thank you to Vito Redaelli

For copyrights regarding any unidentified iconographic materials, please contact the Foundation of the Order of the Architects, Planners, Landscape Architects and Conservators of the Province of Milan www.ordinearchitetti.mi.it www.fondazione.ordinearchitetti.mi.it

From the idea of the city to the built city: the Garibaldi-Repubblica area

An historical reading of the “Garibaldi-Repubblica” area means retracing the history of Milan and the idea of the city over the last two centuries. This place actually makes clear the fundamental relationship between new urban locations and transport infrastructures. These locations served at first as production sites throughout the nineteenth century until the half of the twentieth century and then, from the mid of the twentieth century to our days, as service/informational sites. This relationship created, over the past two centuries, a strong contrast between the built city and the idea of the city. Retracing and interpreting this – sometimes admitted, sometimes denied – contrast is crucial to the comprehension of the new urban design that today is coming to its completion; only through its critical reading we can understand the current interventions that conclude a two-century long path in urban planning. As we keep the focus on the idea of the city in the nineteenth century, on the city actually built in the twentieth century, on the strong polycentric vocation of the Lombardy – continuously denied through the forced development of the city-metropolis – on the debate about the idea of city through its different master plans, on its innovative idea in the post-war period, on breaking the urban centrality in favour of a city as the main system of stratified regional relationships, on the transition from a city as a productive site to a city of services and finally to a consumer global city, we find the essential key to understand the evolution of this part of Milan where, over the past two centuries, everything concentrates, everything is structured on the view of the future city. This part of Milan takes shape and becomes visible when the railroad is built. The rising industrialisation of the Lombard territory, towards the

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA first half of the nineteenth century, accelerates the urbanisation process, a phenomenon strictly related to the high growth of the population during the same years. In the first half of the nineteenth century Milan has a population of 150,000 that peaks to 243,000 in 1861 with a rise of 60%. After 20 years, in 1881, the city counts 350,000 inhabitants. The urban development, as the new economic-capitalistic approach of the end of the nineteenth century, structures itself on the idea of a city founded on production, while large-scale relationships change the times of the city. Up to the first half of the nineteenth century, Milan continues developing almost entirely inside the boundaries of the Spanish city. The sole exceptions of external development follow the historical urban axis, where, immediately outside the city walls, a consolidated urban fabric already existed (the Borgo degli Ortolani situated along the Varesina road running along the North-east boundary of the old parade ground, and the Borgo di San Gottardo that, due to the presence of the canals, developed along the road holding the same name). The remaining part of the territory outside the walls, instead, was entirely occupied by farmland. “The massive urbanisation of the Lombard territory triggers an increasingly hectic expansion process and new needs, which the city was not prepared to meet” (1). The history and the construction of the Garibaldi-Repubblica

MILAN, ENTRANCE OF THE FERDINANDEA LOMBARDO VENETA ROAD AT BORGO DELLA STELLA (IMAGE COURTESY OF CIVICA RACCOLTA STAMPE A. BERTARELLI)

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA area integrates in this hectic development framework. The urban shape of this part of the city of Milan revolves around the construction of the railroad infrastructure. This part of territory experiences its first urbanisation just towards the half of the nineteenth century. In 1840, the railway line Milan-Monza (the second Italian railroad line after the Naples-Portici) is inaugurated. But, as soon as 1838, the railway line Milan-Venice is already under construction, contemporary to the Milan-Como line, which represents the second railway of the Lombard territory. “The construction of these first lines gives a decisive impulse to the reciprocal relationship between infrastructures and production facilities. Milan-Monza and Milan- Como railways, actually, are the backbone of a production system centring in the capital of the region and having its natural end, through the Milan-Venice line, towards the Adriatic Sea”(2). With the construction of the first railway line Milan-Monza, it is also inaugurated the first stub terminal station at Porta Nuova, today still visible at the beginning of Via Melchiorre Gioia. In 1857, where today we find Piazza della Repubblica, the construction of the new Central Station railway hub of Milan begins, an infrastructure aimed at collecting the lines coming from different origins. The location, besides determining a sort of ‘closure’ of the city, giving a boost to its inconsistent development, also causes an ongoing urban fragmentation, still clearly recognisable, and breaks off the network of historical roads that formed the framework of this part of territory. “Only Corso di Loreto – today Corso Buenos Aires – was adequately stepped over by the railway; the ancient Postal road to Sesto and Monza, outside Porta Nuova, instead, was suffocated with a building of inadequate span, still existing. The road to Como was cut off at Garibaldi rail-yard and redirected to Via Farini, which originally held on purpose the name of “Comasina Nuova”. All the other regional main roads were crossed by level crossings. However, a deeper, indelible damage came from the land economics. The new railway, in fact, created an unpleasant and cluttered belt along the urban boundary, while humiliating everything that remained outside” (3). The first attempt to regularise and address the design of this part of the city comes with the Master Plan of Milan drafted by Cesare Beruto in 1889. He tries to organise the emerging city through large urban blocks, situated between the città dei bastioni (the city inside the Spanish walls) and its outermost boundary – envisaged

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA by Beruto as a major road (currently the external beltway). His plan overlaps and rests on a system of infrastructures that cut off the continuity of the ideal major roads. The layout itself regarding Monza’s railway connection to the railways directed to the Central Station, situated in Piazza della Repubblica, clearly defines the contradiction between the two designs: The built city and the imagined city. The two lunette-shaped areas, created by the connection of the lines coming from Venice and Turin with those directed to Monza- Como, will unmistakably determine the future design of the city. The Master Plan drafted by Angelo Pavia and Giovanni Masera in 1911 activates an overall redesign process of the urban

MILAN MASTER PLAN BY CESARE BERUTO, MILAN 1885 (IMAGE COURTESY OF CIVICA RACCOLTA STAMPE A. BERTARELLI)

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA infrastructures. However, it is only with the moving back of the Central Station from Piazza della Repubblica to its current location in Piazza Duca d’Aosta that a process of urban review of this part of the city begins. “Between 1906 and 1908 the immigration flow towards the city of Milan reaches its peak. The built surface, following the implementation of the master plan drafted by Beruto, was 6.6 million square metres, and reaches 9.7 million in 1901 and 14 million in 1911”(4). Since the end of the nineteenth century the intense cultural debate, started by the different conferences held on occasion of the Universal Exhibition in 1881, involves the Labour Question. The socio-cultural unrest as a result of this debate creates a real Social Question. In 1886, the new social canteens, designed by the architect Luigi Broggi, in response to the thorny need of feeding the underclasses and the working class (5), are built near Ponte delle Gabelle along Naviglio della Martesana (Martesana Canal). During these years, the new social needs created by the strong immigration flow towards the city lead the way to the first examples of social philanthropy: Social cooperatives, mutual help societies and cooperatives of consumption for the creation of food shops. These associations create the prerequisites for building new housing for their members. It is not a case that in 1908 the Istituto Case Popolari (Public Housing Institute) is created. In this context, characterised by a strong public and private building development, with an increasing housing demand, the new master plan drafted by Pavia-Masera is launched (1911). The plan does not only respond to the increasing demand for new housing facilities, but it also stands out for its intention to reorganise the transport infrastructures and, for this reason, it is also defined by many scholars as “la carta infrastrutturale della città” (the “Infrastructural Chart of the City”). This plan contains the moving back of the Central Station, the introduction of the new rail yard of Via Farini, the suppression of the Sempione rail yard and other projects that will permanently mark the Milanese railway junction. The building of the new Central Station in Piazza Duca d’Aosta – but also the breakup of the Lazzaretto (the ancient leper hospital) firstly divided by the railway, and then totally destroyed due to the construction of the residential buildings, today still present – are typical examples of the theory of a hectic run-up to the construction of the city as a symbol of the emerging capitalism, increasingly

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA tied to the direct relationship between productive system and infrastructures. The symbolic mistake committed in Via Vittor Pisani, where the new Central Station was lied off the axis of the road, clearly described by de Finetti in “Milano, Costruzione di Una Città”, gives us the sense of proceeding without attention to the urban design. “[…] It also shows that the draw-up of the urban plan of Milan systematically proceeded through fragments, and that the civilisation committing those mistakes lacked the Galilean attitude of leading up the single questions to a unitary synthesis: Further confirmation of the modern irrationality, a mistake that irrevocably condemns the entire branch of knowledge of a century” (6). Although this strong, hectic and sometimes irregular, building and productive concentration finds its wider development inside the city and its surroundings, Milan is never going to be the typical example of industrial metropolis par excellence, like London or Paris, structured in the urban desert. The regional urban railway (Ferrovie Nord), built in Lombardy between the nineteenth and twentieth century, makes Milan a polycentric city. “The growth of Milan and of its surrounding municipalities corresponds to the overall growth of the entire region, and its highest increase (highlighting a more intense industrialisation) is registered in the ten years between 1901 and 1911: The city and its surroundings account for 260,000 inhabitants, while the Lombardy region’s population rises from 4.3 to 4.9 million […]. The polycentric urban network was already a thousand-year-old, when the industrialisation of the region will identify that “città Lombardia”, the “regional polycentric city” that no wish or action, aimed at transforming it into an industrial metropolis centred in Milan, will be able to modify. Facts stands clear: According to the data registered in the 1911 census, Milan hosts 8.238 businesses (153,165 employees), while the remaining biggest industrial municipalities (23) host 8,574 businesses (172,000 employees)” (7). In those years the fate of the city is debated, and the projects, developed in the same period, concerning the urban metropolitan networks and their possible railways connections are remarkable. In 1903, Candiani and Castiglioni, both engineers, develop a proposal of a direct underground connection between the supposed railway stations Mediterranea (on the Venice line) and Adriatica (on the Turin line). The proposal participates in the debate over the opportunity to provide Milan with a single stub terminal, but

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA above all it clashes with the kind of urban development chosen. The essential idea of the proposal intended to break up with the development of the monocentric city, which was instead pursued with the solution of the single stub terminal. It based the development of city on two different infrastructural poles that would have started a completely different transformation from the one that actually took place. This urbanistic will to break up with the urban development scheme, although with different lines of reasoning and infrastructural proposals, can be found later in the AR Plan (where AR stands for Architetti Riuniti), drafted in 1944-1945 by a group of rationalist architects composed by Albini, Bottoni, Gardella, Mucchi, Peressutti, Pucci, Putelli, Rogers, Belgiojoso and Cerutti. In summary, the period that goes from 1888 (Beruto plan) to 1911 (Pavia-Masera plan) ends with the latter closing the debate on the future urban development of Milan: The Pavia-Masera plan defines its guidelines in continuity with the Berutian design, and the layout of the infrastructural network in response to the monocentric city, but in contrast with what was, and still is, the polycentric specificity of the region. This controversy will come up again some years later, in 1927, with the new competition for Milan’s master plan. The winning project, signed by architect Piero Portaluppi and engineer Marco Semenza(8), sustains the proposal of a regional infrastructural network able to meet the needs of a strong polycentric city, together with a network of urban underground network based on the example of other European cities. It is remarkably important the representation of the “limiti della zona di influenza” (‘boundaries of the influence zone’) displaying the entire Lombardy region, including all the towns reachable in one hour from the centre of Milan, “an original way to deal with the Lombard specificity – we would say today – within the context of the regional polycentric culture” (9). However, the 1929 crisis leads to a whole different direction, although some years later, all the quantitative forecasting made by Portaluppi and Semenza will find confirmation. Against this background and with the opening of the new Central Station in Piazza Duca d’Aosta and the demolition of the old Central Station, in Piazza della Repubblica, the area between the Garibaldi Station and Piazza della Repubblica will remain for decades outside a real urban design. The solution of the stub terminal triggers a series of projects that will characterise the area and will lead to the definition

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA of the current layout: The building of Via Vittor Pisani, and its above mentioned inconsistencies, the building of Piazza della Repubblica; Viale Fulvio Testi (already included in the plans, but not yet realised) passing through Via Volturno and ending at the Bastioni, the proposal of enlarging Via Melchiorre Gioia by covering the Martesana Canal, and the conservation of the two symmetrical lunettes. If on one side a real, yet controversial, urban design and a widespread monumentality is given to the area more strictly connected to the new railway station, on the other side, the remaining part of the area points out a combination of disharmonious elements, as a result of the overlap between the Berutian design with the system of the infrastructures present in the nineteenth century and newly built at the beginning of the century. The urban contradiction and fragmentation are reconsidered in the new Master Plan drafted by Albertini in 1934. It represents the counter-answer to the Portaluppi-Semenza plan. The city is considered as a “grande metropoli”, a two-million inhabitants city spreading without any interruption up to its administrative boundary. “Thence, this is how a gigantic, dense, homogeneous city was envisaged, without any growth axis, without any clear rules, without any specialisations among its elements and those principles of healthy organisation that urban planning had by then declared inescapable and that the same author of the plan kept on affirming in his writings” (10). The Plan, specifically on the Garibaldi-Repubblica areas, confirms the moving back of the railway to Via Carlo Farini; the general layout of the area is structured on a new street network that involves the extention of Viale Tunisia up to its intersection with Via Carlo Farini, while Viale Fulvio Testi, through Via Volturno, comes to an end on the extention of Viale Tunisia up to the bastioni. Albertini also introduced the layout of the street from the Central Station square to Porta Volta, and that, according to his premise, should have represented the natural continuation of Via Palmanova through Via Andrea Doria. These streets created a sort of second Piazza della Repubblica at the intersection with Via Melchiorre Gioia, and represented a revival – a few centuries later – of the Haussmanian layout. Regardless of the fact that the street network layout conceived by Albertini was not actually realised, it draws the attention on the moving back of the railway system to the present Porta Garibaldi Station. Despite its contradictions, it is

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA going to become the main urban planning issue debated during the post-war period, especially regarding this part of Milan, and it will lead to the 1953 plan, preparing the ground for the construction of the new business district. In a sense, it is only in the post-war period that for the first time, with the 1953 Plan, the historical relationship between the infrastructural network and the production system shifts towards a strategic relationship between accessibility and the location of the new information and business services, consistent with the growing demand of the city. For the first time, the true specificity of the area in the regional context it is defined or, better to say, becomes real, considering the accessibility as an opportunity for services and information exchange between the city of Milan and the rest of Lombardy. It definitively breaks up the concept of transport networks linked to production system: It is no longer the nineteenth century city where the infrastructures were almost naturally linked to the productive fabric; all the productive facilities have already been relocated. The private and public transport system ensures a wider degree of freedom of movement and therefore a higher autonomy in the productive facilities location. Since the beginning of the fifties, we witness what is going to become a true transport revolution: Car is the mean ensuring freedom of movement par excellence and everything is structured and defined only as a function of it, as a sign of an achieved individual freedom. It generates a new vision of the urban space and new ways of using the time – or times – of the city. The 1953 plan stems out from the innovative drive of a vision of an exponential economic and urban growth, driven by the reconstruction will. We are in the first post-war years and, for the first time, a plan is conceived on the basis of a National Planning Law (n°1150/1942). The law defines the rules and regulates the functions (using the zoning concept) of the entire municipal territory. In fact, the first study commissions on the regulations of the Planning Law are established in Milan with the purpose of drafting the new Master Plan. “The fundamental criteria applied to the new master plan of Milan, defining its most important features, can be found in the following aspects: The inclusion of the urban plan in a Regional Plan, the industrial decentralisation, the creation of a regional business district, the zoning of the entire municipal territory, the construction of great urban motorways (“assi attrezzati”) accessing the city[…]. All the regional

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA industries and businesses are going to be located in a Centre at the intersection of the urban motorways, which besides serving as collectors of the urban traffic, also serve as collectors for the entire inbound traffic from all over Lombardy. This plan breaks with the traditional traffic system, retained by all the previous plans, where the original concentric structure of the Roman city, of the medieval city, of the city walls and the Spanish ramparts had been always preserved without any substantial modification”(11). In this respect, it is emblematic the content of the report attached to the Master Plan: The city is considered as a set of individual travels through a system of relations centred on the exclusive development of the road network and on the use of private means of transport. In this view, the major urban functions are located at the intersection of the new proposed urban motorways. On the basis of the solution proposed for the moving back of the Varesine railways and of the principles enunciated in 1953 Plan, the municipal offices draft the first detailed plan of the new business district. The layout stems out and structures itself on the building of the urban motorway that originating from Piazzale Lagosta – at the end of Via Fulvio Testi – reshapes the Isola neighbourhood, crosses over the new rail bundle(12) and the newly proposed Garibaldi Railway Station(13), then continues its route, while redesigning the urban area, towards the Bastioni di Porta Volta and connects with the planned south-west road directed to Genoa. The detailed plan is going to be modified several times over the years, as to pinpoint the strong technical and administrative impossibility to give a definitive layout to this part of the city. The urban settings next to the Garibaldi-Repubblica area, right since the mid-fifties to the beginning of the seventies witnessed a wide development. During these years the system of Piazza della Repubblica-Via Vittor Pisani is settled, and the Lombard leading industries build the first skyscrapers in this area as an expression of the new image of the Lombard capitalism. Milan and its metropolitan area experience the highest increase in population. “From the post-war years until the end of the seventies, a new Lombard human geography is formed, depending on the increase in population of 2,000,0000 units (from 6,574,000 in 1951 to 8,552,000 in 1971, its actual figure) […] In the same period the population of the metropolitan area of Milan rises from 1,860,000 inhabitants in 1951, to 2,460,000 in 1962 (with an increase of 32%, corresponding to more than 70% of the increase registered in the

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA entire region), and to 3,120,000 inhabitants in 1971” (14). The residential, productive and service related development increasingly spreads all over the territory; and yet the area that the authors of the Master Plan of Milano and then of the Detailed Plan of Garibaldi-Repubblica intended to be the information and service engine of the city and of the region cannot get off the ground and still lacks a defined layout. The difficulty in planning this part of the city can possibly be found in the rigidity of the model imposed for the business centre, and in the contradiction that has always accompanied this place since its inception, that is the overlap of the idea of city with the city actually built. This impeded to understand and interpret the true essence of the existing urban structure. With the exception of some isolated enterprises like the new railways skyscrapers, which would deserve a dedicated study, and a few worthy initiatives from the academic and cultural world that try to propose a new approach to the urban definition of the areas, revisiting and redefining them in view of their reuse as public spaces (it worth remembering the projects following the initiative of “Casabella” Magazine together with the Municipality of Milan), it is not until the first nineties that the debate on the urban fate of this part of the city draws a renovated attention following the launch of the Garibaldi-Repubblica Competition and, some years before, the drafting of the Documento Direttore del Passante Ferroviario (Railway by-pass Guidelines) in 1983, and the related area projects. It is worth noting that some years before, in 1980, after a very long process the Master Plan of Milan was finally approved. The innovation contained in the guidelines transferred to an operating and planning phase (Piani Complessi) the solution of the urban and participation issues. The Piano Comunale dei Trasporti (Municipal Transport Plan), another planning instrument connected with the Master Plan, creates a strict integration between the settlement trend and the planned infrastructures. The Piano Comunale dei Trasporti contains the Passante Ferroviario (railway bypass), a crucial infrastructure for the entire Lombard railway system: A by- passing structure connecting the Bovisa system and Porta Vittoria. This integration, connecting the Ferrovie dello Stato (Italian State Railways) and Ferrovie Nord railways, lays the path for the construction of the present-day regional railway service, posing Milan as its hub. A new planning approach, although historically consolidated,

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA is structured and starts off through a new territory management: Complexity cannot be governed just by planning, but through any tool able to deal with the different planning issues, also involving private developers. The Passante Ferroviario, as remembered before, marks the beginning of the studies on big “area planning” (progetti d’area), while sustaining the functional renewal and redevelopment of parts of the city. During this period thorough studies are carried on about the new Portello, the new Bicocca and the very same areas of Garibaldi-Repubblica that, with the introduction of the new infrastructure, become extremely easy to access both at regional and national level. The connection of the by-passing system with the whole airport system, and the now consolidated urban underground system, makes it the preeminent setting for the relations at regional level and beyond. Also in view of the new infrastructures, a modernised idea of the business district persists. It envisages the setting of some activities related to the financial and insurance field, together with the regional information system, large commercial malls and cultural centres. This functional mix constitutes the basis for the new competition of the nineties. The process that led to the realisation of the present layout of the area developed through intermediate stages, starting from the 1991-2 international competition, promoted by AIM (Associazione Interessi Metropolitani) and the Municipal Council and won by Pierluigi Nicolin. Although the assignment was annulled by the Court following the appeal lodged by some residents, this competition marks the rift with the tradition: The entries show a strongly international architecture, breaking with the architectural tradition homologated and perpetuated until the eighties. The winning project of the architect Pierluigi Nicolin, based on an accurate reading of the road infrastructures, carefully reinterprets the different public and private needs and clearly anticipates the future of the city. It lays the foundation of the urban and architectural final layout that today almost prophetically finds its completion. “The project tries to interact with the different “levels of reality” of the site – historical, infrastructural, social, territorial and urban – and it does not merely try to impose a new shape to the site, but to derive it from the context. A choice that helps to realise the works through separated stages while the city will continue to work” (15).

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA This continuity in style is both evident in the urban design and in the architectural expression. The attention that the winner of the competition pays to the layout and to the signs of the city can be found – although with the necessary differences in style, due to the updating of the public and private different needs – in the buildings that today show themselves in their entireness. The idea of the city that anticipates what is going to happen is all written in the attention to the volumetric arrangement, realisable in different phases and times, but still within a layered design of the city. “[…] From this point of view the winning project does not limit to criticise the reality where we live, but shows a somewhat justified optimism. The project signed by Nicolin represents the hope that Milan will be still able to express a modern language. This value could be rejected, but not considered as a reflection of a much more painful reality” (16). The complexity of the project will later encounter many administrative difficulties and, through long vicissitudes, will reach our days. The activities defined by the railway by-pass guidelines and included in the competition notice, will be the focus of a complex negotiation turning the site from an informational city to a consumerism city. Following the 1991 competition and the annulment after the residents’ appeal, the Municipality of Milan promoted urban study of the area that led to the definition of a PII (Programma Integrato di Intervento), with Nicolin’s advise, which is based on a layout around a central park. The real transformation process started only in 1999, due to the initiative of private developers together with the Municipality of Milan and Lombardy Region. In 2003, this led to the competition for the new Lombardy Region headquarters, won by Pei Cobb Freed Partners, Caputo Partnership and Sistema Duemila, and, in 2004, to the competition for the central park and the Porta Nuova gardens, won by Petra Balisse of Inside/Outside with the “Biblioteca degli alberi” project (the Trees Library). During the same year a feasibility study is assigned to Raffaello Cecchi and Vincenza Lima, preliminary to the design of the municipal offices high-rise building in Via Melchiorre Gioia. The project is now pending. In 2005, Nicolin wins the competition for the ModAM project, the multidisciplinary lab – fashion, art and communication – located on the south side of Porta Nuova Gardens. This project is also pending, following the evaluation on the new needs of the area. Also in 2005 the Municipality of Milan and Hines, the main private

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA developer together with the Municipality, sign the agreement regarding the PII-Programma Integrato di Intervento (Integrate Intervention Programme) for the development of Garibaldi- Repubblica area. The following year Hines acquires Le Varesine srl and buys out the Isola Lunetta areas included in the PII, and assigns the concept plan of the Città della Moda (Fashion City) to César Pelli, the layout of the former Varesine area to Lee Polisano of Kohn Pedersen Fox, and the new concept plan of Isola-Lunetta to Studio Boeri. In 2007 the developer, following the building at Rho-Pero of the new Fiera Milano Exhibition Complex, requests a modification to reduce the needs of new exhibition spaces and gives out the idea of creating a new section exclusively dedicated to fashion. The Porta Nuova development, with its 350,000 square metres of buildings and 160,000 square metres of landscape and pedestrian paths, represents the greatest ongoing urban renewal. In particular, the Porta Nuova development can be divided into the following areas: Porta Nuova-Garibaldi Repubblica, characterised by César Pelli’s concept plan and based on the building of a central podium, posing as a new urban square and pursuing the criteria of connection,

AXONOMETRIC VIEW OF THE PROJECT BY PIERLUIGI NICOLIN, WINNER OF THE 1991 COMPETITION FOR THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA walking area and accessibility, with the idea of the relevance of the area as new business centre; Porta Nuova-Varesine, characterised by an iconic steel and glass office building, Torre Varesina B, also called “Il Diamantone”; Porta Nuova Isola, whose concept plan was drafted by Studio Boeri, also the designer of the two Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) residential towers, characterised by the presence of trees all along the their height (17). The realisation of the above described projects will conclude the troubled history of a place, lasted around two centuries, from the beginning, with the construction of the first railway Milano-Monza, until today. Throughout the reconstruction of the history of the Garibaldi- Repubblica area, we came across different ideas of the city, from the Berutian city to the city imagined by Portaluppi-Semenza, to the Arbertini’s city, to the AR Plan (1944-1945), to the different urban designs that imagined the future of this part of the city. In my judgement, the 1991 competition and its winning project, signed by architect Pierluigi Nicolin, closes an historical cycle focused on the research of the urban-architectural future of the area. As a conclusion of this historical path I quote a passage from “Milano Boom” a writing of Pierluigi Nicolin, the author of the project, published on Lotus International, n°131/2007: “The great projects now under construction, driven by the ambition of the political class and funded by local and international investors, are expression of the intention of giving to Milano a global status, also relying on the presence of the new international architecture […]. Abandoned the continuity with the old urban relations, belittled by the development of new lifestyles, the new settlements aim at realising autonomous ecosystems able to anticipate the idea of an archipelago metropolis. I would like to answer to those struggling with this perspective that the idea is not negative per se, and aside from the clear classist aspect, it is part of the long history of the quest for solutions to the traditional ills of the metropolis” (18).

PATRIZIO ANTONIO CIMINO

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA (1) Guido Canella, Il Sistema Teatrale di Milano, Milan: Dedalo Libri, 1966. (2) Virgilio Vercelloni, Atlante Storico di Milano, Città di Lombardia, Officina d’arti grafiche Lucini, Milan 1987. (3) Giuseppe de Finetti, Milano. Costruzione di Una Città, Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 2002. (4) Virgilio Vercelloni, Atlante Storico di Milano, Città della Lombardia, op. cit. (5) See project description. (6) Giuseppe de Finetti, Milano – Costruzione di Una Città, op. cit. (7) ”Milano nell’Italia Liberale 1898-1922” in Virgilio Vercelloni, La città e l’idea di città, Cariplo 1993. (8) Piero Portaluppi, Marco Semenza, Milano com’è ora come sarà, Bestetti e Tumminelli, Milan-Rome 1927. (9) Virgilio Vercelloni, Atlante Storico di Milano, Città di Lombardia, op. cit. (10) Milano. Il Piano Regolatore Generale 1953, Turin, Urbanistica, 1956. (11) From the “Relazione tecnica illustrativa del progetto di nuovo Piano Regolatore Generale della città di Milano” (“Technical Report of the New Master Plan of the City of Milan”), Resolution of the Municipal Council, July 12th, 1950). (12) The bridge over the rail bundle is the sole element of the urban motorway actually built. Its section is still visible today, and it should have represented the junction between Piazzale Lagosta and the Bastioni di Porta Volta. (13) See project description. (14) Virgilio Vercelloni, Atlante Storico di Milano – Città di Lombardia, op. cit. (15) Pierluigi Nicolin, “Relazione allegata al progetto” in Progetti per Milano, Abitare Segesta Cataloghi, Milan 1992. (16) From the interview with Gigi Mazza, component of the Competition’s Jury in “Casabella” n° 590 may 1992. (17) For more in-depth information on the new projects, see the project descriptions. (18) Pierluigi Nicolin, Milano Boom in “Lotus International” n°131, 2007.

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA ABOVE: THE TORRE UNICREDIT UNDER CONSTRUCTION (PHOTO BY STEFANO SURIANO) BELOW: VIEW OF MILAN (PHOTO BY BARBARA PALAZZI)

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA FONDAZIONE DELL’ORDINE DEGLI ARCHITETTI, PIANIFICATORI, PAESAGGISTI E CONSERVATORI DELLA PROVINCIA DI MILANO Cn. 338/itineraries

Piazza della Repubblica and Piazza Duca d’Aosta / 1865-1931

Piazza della Repubblica, Via Vittor Pisani, Piazza Duca d’Aosta, Milan

Piazza della Repubblica, on the north for the replacement of Milan’s railway side of the historical centre, was created belt built in the Austrian period started as in 1865 to serve the newly built Central early as 1898 in Rome (1). Different trends Station. The new square, defined as Piazzale of thoughts influenced the choice on the Stazione Centrale, featured a wide garden, typology of the new Central station, which surrounded by the roads and tramways finally led to the adoption of the “terminal directed to the station. Following the station” typology. Nonetheless, some realisation of the current Central station anomalies relating to the preexistent urban in 1931, the railway station of Piazza della layout are evident in the location of the Repubblica was demolished and the square new station, like the displacement of the extended to the current days aspect. Studies building’s median axis compared to Piazzale

VIEW OF PIAZZA DELLA REPUBBLICA (PHOTO BY STEFANO TOPUNTOLI)

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA Piazza della Repubblica and Piazza Duca d’Aosta / 1865-1931 d’Aosta and Via Vittor Pisani’s axis. This two towers as a “gate” to Via Principe is particularly evident if we observe from Umberto, the Municipality supports the afar and look at the Central Station as a idea of the square’s renewal, in order to background of the road perspective. build a new neighbourhood, characterised The first mistake dates back to 1889 with by offices and stately residential buildings. Beruto Master Plan. It planned the building In 1935-1936 the Bonaiti and Malugani of a square in the back of the old Central buildings by Muzio are realised. Built as a Station and of a road (Via Vittor Pisani), compact construction, clad in red clinker designed disregarding the orientation of tiles with a granite base and tall vertical the rampart and of Via Principe Umberto. loggias that lighten the composition, the The second evident mistake goes back to building is a typical example of monumental 1906, when the guidelines for the building characterisation of the block typology. of the new terminal station, leading to the Muzio also designed the Turati tower construction of the new Central Station (1963-1968), symmetrical to tower built building by architect Stacchini in Piazza by Luigi Mattioni some years earlier. The Duca d’Aosta, are defined. The building building has a steel structure and is clad in is not aligned with Via Vittor Pisani, but artificial decorative stone. Together with the lies perpendicularly to the external ring- Mattioni tower, it represents a landmark road, showing that, as a matter of fact, pointing out the access to the historical the technicians at the time did not realise centre from the Central Station. In 1988, the the potentiality of the intervention, as the Metropolitana Milanese Company, together new station would have become the core with the Municipality of Milan, launches a of the surrounding neighbourhood. The competition for the renewal of the urban consequences become real in 1931, when the system comprising Piazza della Repubblica, old Central Station, located in today’s Piazza Via Vittor Pisani and the squares adjacent della Repubblica, was demolished. During the Central Station. The current layout the same years a renewal project of the of Piazza Duca d’Aosta represents the square starts, recalling the plan that since realisation of the winning project signed by 1924 conceived the square as the new access architects Antonio Zanuso, Carlo Chambry point to the historic city. After the initial and William Pascoe. hypothesis that located the War Memorial SIMONA ROSATO monument along Via Principe Umberto- Via Principe Amedeo’s axis and the coeval (1) Giuseppe de Finetti, Milano. Costruzione di una città, Hoepli, proposal by Giovanni Muzio of building Milan 2002, pag. 501.

Ex-Cucine Economiche (Former Social Canteens) / 1883 / Luigi Broggi

Viale Monte Grappa 8, Milan

Between the end of the nineteenth a hard and tough social question. In this century and the beginning of the twentieth context, the concept of assistance shifts century, factories are the main feature from the “religious compassion” to a solid of the Milanese urban landscape. During civic commitment taking a vital, real this period, Milan becomes the industrial yet symbolic role in defining the urban and financial capital of the newly formed landscape under construction. Italian state. In this phase, a real “worker Religious buildings are integrated with question” is posed in response to the new facilities: Training schools managed new social needs created by massive by the Salesians and oratories. First actions urbanisation. The cultural debate triggered of social philanthropy spring up: Social by a number of conferences that took place cooperatives, mutual help societies and on occasion of the World Exposition in consumption cooperatives for the creation 1881, creates a cultural unrest leading to of food shops. The latter are going to give

GIUSEPPE BARBAGLIA, SOCIAL CANTEENS AT PORTA NUOVA, OIL ON CANVAS

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA Ex-Cucine Economiche (Former Social Canteens) / 1883 / L. Broggi raise to the building of housing projects outstanding example of Milanese charitable for their members. In 1908 the Istituto architecture. Case Popolari (Public Housing Institute) is The social canteens that during their founded. activity had a refectory with 160 seats, have Against this background the brick- not been used since the seventies. Recently, faced building of the “Opera Pia Cucine the renewal works to turn the place into a Economiche” – near the old Ponte delle mixed-use building, a project by architect Gabelle along the Martesana Canal, the Carlo Catacchio, brought to light some current Viale Montegrappa – designed by decorative elements of the facade in eclectic architect Luigi Broggi in 1883 on behalf of style and the service spaces once located at the Opera Pia, raises to the level of a social the Martesana towpath level and currently as well as an architectural monument. underground. The building today hosts The social canteens, inaugurated on different cultural activities. December 15th, 1883 by the “Comitato SIMONA ROSATO Promotore per le Cucine Economiche e i Forni Sociali” (Organising Committee THE SOCIAL CANTEENS IN THE NEW URBAN LANDSCAPE for the Social Canteens and Bakeries) (PHOTO BY STEFANO SURIANO) were organised to face the primary needs of the underclasses and the working class. They drew inspiration by the first canteen for the poor sick people living the in neighbourhood, opened in 1879 by Alessandra Massini, which provided hot meals for free to the neighbourhood people. Since their launch the canteens gained great public attention for their social efficacy in providing food to the workers and the poor of the area. The complex, built in Neo-romanic style and decorated in terra-cotta with a brick facade, extended over two storeys, with the canteens (kitchens and refectory) at the ground floor and the administrative offices at the first floor. It represents an

The Pirelli Skyscraper / 1952-1961 / G. Ponti, A. Fornaroli, A. Rosselli, G. Valtolina, E. Dell’Orto, A. Danusso, P. L. Nervi

Piazza Duca d’Aosta 3, Milan

Affectionately called “Pirellone” by historic factory destroyed by the bombing Milanese people, with its height of 127.10 in 1943. Conceived as the prestigious m it has been for fifty years the tallest headquarters of the company it was named building in the city, until the new Palazzo after, it became in those years the symbol della Regione was built. The skyscraper, of the rebirth of the city and its ambassador acquired in 1978 by Regione Lombardia, abroad. was erected on the Brusada land, a no The tower typology was intentionally longer used area where was located Pirelli’s chosen as it was considered the best-suited to create a recognisable image: “[…] The VIEW OF THE BUILDING FROM PIAZZA DUCA crystal blade of the Pirelli skyscraper D’AOSTA (PHOTO BY STEFANO SURIANO) finds in the rationalistic language the inescapable path to turn Milan into a modern city, while establishing its identity inside the international circuit”(1). The result is fully achieved by Gio Ponti’s design. The work accomplishes the author’s architectural ideal of the “finished form”, unmodifiable and “pure”, carried on through a research that in his own words is: “aimed at reaching the essential form, where there is nothing to remove, nothing to add”(2). For the building Ponti recurs to new techniques and materials, outcome of the technological development. He works together with an outstanding team, including Fornaroli, Rosselli, Valtolina, Dell’Orto, Nervi and Danusso. The skyscraper stands on a base that includes the service spaces and the auditorium; the main entrance faces Piazza Duca d’Aosta. The shape of the tower is a particular one, a “flattened”, very long

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA The Pirelli Skyscraper / 1952-1961 / Ponti, Fornaroli, Rosselli, Valtolina, Dell’Orto, Danusso, Nervi and narrow hexagon that originates the The Pirelli skyscraper in its clarity and typical “diamond” profile, with a length of simplicity, with its peculiar imposing yet 79 m and a width of just 18.50 m, a true thin volume, also because of its position on innovation compared to the classical high- a free, unhedged land, can assume different rise buildings with a rectangular plan. images depending on the different points The facade is divided into three parts of view, shifting from the view of the large and is defined by four “pilastri-parete” front to the thin and slender image of the (“pillars-walls”). They are narrow but with tapered extremities. a width of 2 m at the base and tapered SIMONA ROSATO up to just 50 cm to the top, a solution to overcome the structural issues due to the height of such thin building. The other defining feature of the building are the four “semipunte triangolari” (“triangular half- ends”) at the two ends of the skyscraper, clad in ceramic mosaic. The top of the building is a suspended crowning, a thin (1) M. Agnoletto , A. Trentin, Edifici Alti - La Parete Lucida e slab of reinforced concrete. The building L’Avvolgibile, in “D’Architettura”, n. 34, December 2007, pp. 160-164. (2) Gio Ponti, Belle Affermazioni nel Mondo del Nostro Disegno is completed by a curtain wall, a continue Industriale, in “Corriere della Sera”, July 1, 1955, now collected in glass surface hanged to the reinforced L. Molinari, C. Rostagni (ed.), Gio Ponti e il Corriere della Sera, 1930-1963, Rizzoli and Fondazione Corriere della Sera, 2011, pp. concrete structure. 432-437.

PLAN OF A TYPICAL FLOOR (IMAGE COURTESY OF ARCHIVIO CSAC AND GIO PONTI ARCHIVES)

Residence Porta Nuova - Gioiaotto / 1970 / Marco Zanuso, Pietro Crescini

Via Melchiorre Gioia 8, Milan

The Residence Porta Nuova, in Via Bega (1959). Therefore, the building is Melchiorre Gioia, completed in 1970, one of the most significant examples was built on a design by architects Marco of Milanese architecture during the Zanuso and Pietro Crescini. reconstruction period up to the seventies. The project was built inside an area of But it also stands out as an important intense experimentation, long dedicated example of brutalist architecture developed to the idea of the development of the over the same years. new Business Centre, together with other The building is characterised by the significant buildings like the high-rise use of prefabricated elements, exposed building by Pietro Lingeri (1953), the concrete, glass, steel and wood. These municipal offices building in Via Pirelli elements, together with the horizontal (1966) and the Torre Galfa by Melchiorre composition of the fronts, defined by

VIEW OF THE BUILDING IN THE URBAN CONTEXT (PHOTO BY BARBARA PALAZZI)

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA Residence Porta Nuova - Gioiaotto / 1970 / M. Zanuso, P. Crescini horizontal string-courses in prefab of the window, opaque and inclined, serves concrete alternating with long strips of as a source of indirect light, addressing the ribbon windows, “lighten” the imposing natural light towards the ceiling, while the building and help to define the relationship central, transparent part, can be opened. between the building and the road, while In the lower part, inside the offices, room highlighting the horizontal matrix of the for archives and fan-coli units is obtained, construction, today made more evident while the partition of the windows allows by the verticality of the new buildings the installation of movable walls. risen in the area, as part of the Garibaldi- SIMONA ROSATO Repubblica development. The building is currently under restoration and refitting works. In March 2012, Hines Italia called a private design competition through invitation for its renewal. The competition was won in June FORESHORTENED VIEW (PHOTO BY BARBARA PALAZZI) of the same year by Park and Associates. The main goal of the project is the reuse of the building, according to which a portion will be dedicated to offices and hotel facilities; it also includes the restoration of the facade through an intervention consistent with the expression and the rhythm of the building. The project therefore is aimed at maintaining and highlighting the main architectonic features of the building, especially the marked horizontality of the fronts and the alternation between the concrete string-course, now exposed, and the ribbon windows, the latter rebuilt with wooden and glass blades. At the typical floor a large window, divided vertically into three parts, follows horizontally the structure. The upper part

Porta Garibaldi Railway Station / 1956-1963 / Giulio Minoletti with E. Gentili Tedeschi, M. Tevarotto

Piazza S. Freud 1, Milan

The first railway station of Milan was Therefore, a larger railways station was built near Porta Nuova, outside the historic built at a distance of two hundred metres city walls. During the nineteenth century from the first, along the Martesana Canal. the site was part of the Municipality of The second Porta Nuova station was Corpi Santi. inaugurated in 1850. The building, in Via Inaugurated in 1840, it is a masonry Melchiorre Gioia, currently serves as a building with a triangular tympanum, Station of the Guardia di Finanza (Italian which is still visible. At first it only served Financial Police), while before it hosted the the Milano-Monza line; in 1846 the line Customs office, for which reason a new floor directed to Como started its development was added on the building. and the existing station proved to be Between 1840 and 1860, we witness inadequate to meet the new needs. a development of the Italian railways.

GALLERIA DELLE CARROZZE, VIEW OF THE LARGE STEEL ROOFING (PHOTO BY MAURIZIO MONTAGNA)

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA Porta Garibaldi Railway Station / 1956-1963 / G. Minoletti with E. Gentili Tedeschi, M. Tevarotto

In 1857, the building of the new Central Varesine” which will continues to operate Station begins in Piazza della Repubblica, until 1963, when the new Garibaldi Station based on the design of the French is opened. architect Bouchot. The new station opens The competitions called by the in May 1864. More than 240 m long, the Municipality of Milan and Ferrovie dello construction has a curved pavilion roof, and Stato in the second post-war period reopen a canopy covering the six rails. Following the question of the Milanese railway the rapid growth of the railway network, stations. in 1873, Porta Garibaldi’s goods yard also In 1952, Minoletti and Gentili Tedeschi starts its operations. win the competition with an articulated In 1907, the Italian State acquires the project, never realised. The project entire national railway and constitutes was proposed again and revised for the the Ferrovie dello Stato (Italian Railways competition held in 1956. This last design Company). The railway service inside includes a high-rise building, the Edificio the city of Milan, therefore, undergoes Viaggiatori (“travellers building”), and a reorganisation process. In 1911 a a podium which hosts the actual railway competition is called for the construction station. The works so far completed feature of the new station, in the same location of a fully-exposed steel framework, opened the actual building. The old Central Station in 1963, and have been subjected to many is demolished and, in 1932, it is replaced transformations. The actual building is with a new and more representative the result of the many and substantial re- building, the current Central Station in examinations of the original project. It still Piazza Duca d’Aosta, completed in 1931. In remains a key railway hub gathering the the same period, a new planning includes high speed railway lines, the underground the dismantlement of the small goods yard lines of Metropolitana Milanese, the at Porta Garibaldi and the realisation of Passante Ferroviario, the urban and extra- a new stub terminal on the north-side of urban bus lines, and a number of vehicular the Cimitero Monumentale (“Monumental roads. Cemetery”). Today, the station serves as a multi- However, some local railways lines are functional centre due to renewal works kept working along the extension of the realised by Centostazioni in 2006. old station’s axis. The lines are directed to SIMONA ROSATO Novara, Gallarate and Varese and represent Porta Nuova’s last station, also called “delle

The new headquarters of Regione Lombardia / 2006-2010 / Pei Cobb Freed & Partners LLP, Caputo Partnership and Sistema Duemila

Piazza Città di Lombardia 1, Milan

In 2001, following to the widening centre. In 2003, the Lombardy Region of the project’s area, architect Pierluigi calls an international competition for its Nicolin elaborates a new layout changing new headquarters, requiring not only the project that won the competition ten the design of a new building, fit for the years before. This new solution identifies purpose, but the layout of a real urban the north-east of the Garibaldi-Repubblica district (1), accessible to all citizens and area, between Via Melchiorre Gioia, Via characterised by a symbolic landmark, in Restelli, Via Algarotti and Via Galvani, as close relationship with the near the Pirelli the definitive location of the institutional skyscraper. In 2004, the group composed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects VIEW OF THE NEW HEADQUARTERS OF REGIONE LLP, Caputo Partnership srl and Sistema LOMBARDIA (PHOTO BY STEFANO SURIANO) Duemila srl wins the competition. The building represents the first of a series of new projects aimed at relaunching the “costruire alto” (“building high”) concept in Milan and, for this reason, it entirely falls in the modern scenario of a “quest of a new iconicity and skyline for Milan”, in pursuit of an architecture “made to impress”(2). The complex, rising on an area of 33,700 square metres, is composed by a high-rise and other lower buildings in reinforced concrete and glass, with a sinuous shape touching at its tangent points. This arrangement creates public courtyards, the largest of which is covered with a curved glass surface. The inter- weaving buildings open to the side roads, while the tower, with its 39 storeys and 161 metres height, represents the core of the project, the “colonising element of the space”(3). The building is the connecting /

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA The new headquarters of Regione Lombardia / 2006-2010 / Pei Cobb Freed & Partners LLP, Caputo Partership and Sistema Duemila opposing element to the Pirelli skyscraper. use of green technologies: heat pumps The new Region’s skyscraper, with its open supplied by groundwater are used both for and concave shape, is as a matter of fact the heating and the cooling system, while antithetical to the closed, “finished” form of part of the electric power is supplied by PV the Pirellone. Nonetheless, the ultimate goal panels, located on the southward fronts and of both buildings is to obtain a changeable on the glass roof covering the square. perspective depending on the different The works started in 2007 and points of view. concluded in 2010. On May 8th, 2009 the The lower buildings host, at the ground tower of Palazzo Lombardia out-topped the floor, public offices, plazas, shops and Grattacielo Pirelli that, since 1960 and for services; the first floor is dedicated to fifty years, held the primacy of the tallest multi-functional, public-private spaces, building in Milan. meeting and conference rooms, archives SIMONA ROSATO and libraries; the political-administrative offices and the regional registry office are situated upstairs. The tower hosts the regional council hall, the press room and the President rooms, while the highest (1) Excerpt from the Note of Competition www.regione.lombardia.it. (2) floors with their terraces and belvedere are P. Nicolin, Milano Boom, in “Lotus” n° 131, 2007. (3) open to the public. F. Purini, Costruire in altezza, in “Area” n° 86, June 2006, pp. 156-159. The complex is characterised by the

THE GLASS SURFACES OF THE BELVEDERE REGIONE LOMBARDIA NEW HEADQUARTERS, FLOOR 39 (PHOTO BY BARBARA PALAZZI) (PHOTO BY BARBARA PALAZZI)

The Torre Unicredit and the podium / 2009-2014 / Pelli Clarke Pelli Architect

Piazza Gae Aulenti, Milan

The concept plan of the Garibaldi- Torre Unicredit, the tallest skyscraper in the Repubblica area, between Garibaldi Station, whole Porta Nuova project, is all clad in a Corso Como and the new park, is based on “sail” glass skin. With its 31 floors and 231 the idea of a wide circular podium as a new metres height, of which 85 m for its tapered urban pedestrian square. “Spire”, in glass and steel, it represents not The complex, as well as the entire area only the tallest building of Milan, but of the layout, is signed by the architect César Pelli. whole country. The building is meant to It features three tall buildings in steel and contribute, together with other projects, to reflective glass surrounding the square. The define the new image of the city, to create an icon, a “edificio-logo (logo building), a

THE TORRE UNICREDIT AND THE BUILDINGS SURROUNDING metropolitan landmark imposing on the THE PODIUM (PHOTO BY STEFANO SURIANO) city as an advertising claim” (1). Adjoining the tallest tower, arranged in a circle, there are the Torre B, 22 storeys, and about 100 metres height, and the Torre C, 11 storeys and about 50 metres height. Their curved volumes enclose a circular square of about 2,300 square metres called the “Podium”, surrounded by shops, restaurants and cafés disposed on two levels. The complex is served by a car park of over 40,000 square metres that directly connects to the Garibaldi railway station, from which one can reach the central square passing through a covered shopping arcade. The square, named after the Italian architect and designer Gae Aulenti, stands 6 metres above the street level to convey cars towards an underground passing, so to create a pedestrian path connecting the station to the park, to Corso Como and, eastward, to the Varesine. The first

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA The Torre Unicredit and the podium / 2009-2014 / Pelli Clarke Pelli Architect permanent public artwork is placed in the to those that passing by will think of middle of the square: The “Egg”, realised by the voices and sounds of the city” (2). Alberto Garutti. The artwork is made by 23 Furthermore, a continuous attention is brass-plated pipes developing vertically on paid to energy saving and environmentally four levels, starting from the parking levels friendly solutions. The energy consumption, up to the square level; listening at each pipe actually, is considerably reduced through one can hear sounds, noises, words coming the use of high-performance glass, from another part of the building. advanced construction systems and high- Garutti says: “These pipes connect efficiency light system. each other different spaces and places of The system controlling the air the building […] this artwork is dedicated temperature inside the building creates a comfortable work environment, while a

THE UPWARD PATH TOWARDS PIAZZA GAE AULENTI direct line of light will reach 90 per cent of (PHOTO BY STEFANO SURIANO) the occupied areas.

SIMONA ROSATO

(1) F. Purini, Costruire in altezza, in “Area” n° 86, June 2006, pp. 156-159. (2) www.domusweb.it – 19/11/2012.

The Torre Varesina B “Diamantone” / 2010-2014 / Kohn Pederson Fox Associates

Via della Liberazione, Via Galileo Galilei, Milan

The Torre Diamante (Diamond Tower), Liberazione in place of the embankment of the new focus of the perspective from Viale the old railroad dismantled at the end of Tunisia and Porta Venezia, with its 130 the sixties, is designed to host offices and metres height and its multi-faceted volume, shops. The architectural design is by Kohn represents the tallest building in Italy with a Pederson Fox Associates (KPF), whereas the steel framework. structural engineering is by ARUP. The tower, built along Viale della The high-rise building stands on a base measuring 30x50 metres. The distinctive feature of the building lies in its irregular THE DIAMANTE SKYSCRAPER IN THE URBAN CONTEXT (PHOTO BY STEFANO SURIANO) geometry. The perimetric columns are actually tilted from the vertical axis; the bearing horizontal elements are entirely built in IPE/HP steel beams and the pillars are also built in steel. A horizontal truss beam system discharges the strong horizontal forces created by the tilted columns into the central core realised in reinforced concrete. Given the narrow and long shape of the site, the architectural design moves towards verticality. The building consequently develops in height, while the inclined columns and the articulation of volumes, with overhangs breaking the uniformity of the facade, create at the same time a sense of “movement”. The interior layout, instead, is characterised by the space enfolding around a central core. This solution permits to optimise the inlet of the natural light and the view of the city. Furthermore, the central spaces host all the services (lifts, electrical equipment, staircases, etc.).

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA The Torre Varesina B “Diamantone” / 2010-2014 / Kohn Pederson Fox Associates

A glass skin defines the facade, volume, which forms the south-east corner conceived as a high-performance insulating of the building, is mainly horizontal, shell, with thermally insulated aluminium consistent with the adjoining buildings. windows. The different parts composing the The horizontal feature also expresses architecture also use different treatments itself through a series of metal slit-shaped for the external surfaces. openings, each 300 mm thick. Large The upper volume stresses the windows stretch across the building without verticality feature, highlighting the posts; interruption for the entire height of each while the feature of the shorter and squared storey. As all the buildings of the Garibaldi-

THE BUILDING UNDER CONSTRUCTION Repubblica area, the Torre Diamante also (PHOTO BY STEFANO SURIANO) uses renewable sources and an advanced standard of environment-friendly solutions to save energy: Geothermal energy, heat pumps, solar and PV panels, optimised lighting system and natural ventilation, upgraded thermal insulation; rainwater collecting system for irrigation; extensive use of biodegradable, natural or environment-friendly materials.

SIMONA ROSATO

The Bosco Verticale / 2007-2015 / Stefano Boeri, Barreca & La Varra

Via Gaetano de Castillia, Milan

Inside the Isola neighborhood, the 76 metres in height (corresponding to 23 layout designed by Boeri Studio, arranges, and 16 storeys), with 17,960 square metres along the edges of the central garden, of residential and 205 square metres of some low-rise buildings (hosting, among business spaces. They are characterised by the others activities, a city centre) and two balconies on which will be planted about residential high-rise buildings called “Bosco 900 trees up to 9 metres high, shrubs, and verticale” (“The vertical forest”). Based on other plant species, equivalent to a forest the design of Boeri Studio (Stefano Boeri, area of near 10,000 square metres. Gianandrea Barreca and Giovanni La A team of experts selected the species, Varra), they measure respectively 110 and preferring the plants that can easily adapt and develop better health conditions for the OVERALL VIEW OF THE TOWERS UNDER CONSTRUCTION residents. (PHOTO BY STEFANO SURIANO) The aim of the Bosco Verticale is regenerating the environment and the biodiversity without involving the spread of the city. According to architect Boeri “the idea of buildings as collectors of solar and wind energy is not a new one. […] What it is new is the individual responsibility of reversing the relationship between city and nature, designing and building state-of- the-art architectures. These architectures, besides filling up vertical and horizontal surfaces with technological facilities (PV panels, wind turbines, hydrogen cells, heat pumps) should also use green surfaces, like lawns, fields, trees – to clad their vertical and horizontal surfaces, so to reduce the energy consumption needed for interior thermal conditioning”(1). Using vegetation will improve the appearance of the facades thanks to the

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA The Bosco Verticale / 2007 -2015 / Stefano Boeri, Barreca & La Varra chromatic effects due to seasonal changes, the “green skin” through the filtration of but it will also contribute to improve the greywater. The process will be managed by comfort and the micro-climate, while an agency, with an office open to the public, absorbing CO2 and fine particles, mitigating that will collect and publish any data useful noising pollution and protecting from sun to assess the system’s sustainability. radiation and wind. The structure was completed in 2012; The Bosco Verticale is conceived currently, fronts and service systems are to combine the use of solar panels on a under construction. surface of 500 square metres with systems Doubts and perplexities has been raised exploiting geothermal energy for internal on the management costs of the entire heating. “ecosistema condominiale” (2) (“block A centralised system will maintain ecosystem”), on the quantity of concrete used to build the structure and, more THE PLANTED BALCONY SYSTEM widely, on the use of vegetation on modern (PHOTO BY STEFANO SURIANO) skyscrapers as “a make-up, if not a real camouflage – with trees and vines covering up the mirroring surfaces of yore”(3) that all alone “cannot persuade those that will continue looking at the skyscrapers from the street level”. On the other hand, the project has received enthusiastic comments from all over the world for the “urban reforestation”.

SIMONA ROSATO

(1) Stefano Boeri, L’anticittà, Editori Laterza, Bari 2011. (2) A. Dusio, F. Del Prete, C. Duzzi ed E. Rini, L’altra Milano – 36 itinerari fuori dal centro, Edizioni Metroguide Espress, Milan 2012. (3) Antonello Boschi, I grattacieli sono erbivori, in “Area” n° 98, June 2008, pag. 175.

The Corte Verde of Corso Como / 2006-2013 / CZA Cino Zucchi Architetti

Via Gaspare Rosales, Via Carlo de Cristoforis, Via Francesco Viganò, Milan

Introducing his project, Cino Zucchi garden measuring 1,100 square metres. The resorted to a joke to explain the placement complex rises along the south side of the of the residences in the neighbourhood’s Garibaldi-Repubblica development area, context: “If Porta Nuova is a steak, the between Via Viganò and Via Rosales, along housing complex then is the salad, it serves the east-west axis, very close to the existing as a side dish”(1). urban fabric. The project called “Corte Verde di Corso The challenge was, in the first place, to Como” consists of 5,000 square metres, with create a connection between the new “rising 31 energy-class-A residences, two large lofts city” and the nineteenth century’s buildings. on the ground floor, apartments ranging This connection was found in the courtyard, from 75 to 200 square metres, a private a Milanese characteristic typology,

BUILDING RENDER IN THE NEW URBAN CONTEXT (IMAGE COURTESY OF CZA - CINO ZUCCHI ARCHITETTI)

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA The Corte Verde of Corso Como / 2006-2013 / CZA Cino Zucchi Architetti improving its liveability through the use of 1,100 square metres. The building, with a state-of-art technologies for energy saving. concrete structure and large terraces, is clad The matrix of the historical block defines in smooth or sandblasted stones and copper the shape of the green podium, from which elements. The partition of the exposed frame two buildings of different height rise to form is warped to follow and suggest the paths a longitudinal courtyard. The courtyard is, between Corso Como and the new circular on one side, the element connecting the square. new building to the urban context and, The stepped building, the wide internal on the other, the mean to recreate a more balconies, the “partitioned” volumes intimate and comfortable environment underline the shift from a typical local on the inside, in particular through the dimension to the metropolitan one. development of large balconies and the The historical tradition of courtyards and realisation of an internal private garden of green terraces of the Milanese houses has been revisited by the research of the sunlight PLAN OF A TYPICAL FLOOR path and relative humidity over the different (IMAGE COURTESY OF CZA - CINO ZUCCHI ARCHITETTI) seasons, which made possible to create transitional spaces between the interior and exterior spaces. The architectural partitions of the fronts, the balconies and the clad materials (decolorized terracotta tiles, pale stone, coloured aluminium sliding panels) prove the research for that contemporary “urban lexicon” able to relate and hold a dialogue with the existing city. Lastly, great care has been posed in the interior spaces design, developed in collaboration with Dolce Vita Homes studio.

SIMONA ROSATO

(1) www.ediliziaeterritorio.ilsole24ore.com.

FROM THE IDEA OF THE CITY TO THE BUILT CITY: THE GARIBALDI-REPUBBLICA AREA PLACES The city through its parts

Other itineraries of the Collection can be found at www.ordinearchitetti.mi.it

Authorial Architecture in the Hinterland Area: The Case of Bollate and Baranzate edited by Luigi Fregoni

Modern Architectures in Legnano edited by Paola Ferri and Alessandro Isastia

Brera-Garibaldi: Historic, Modern and Contemporary City edited by Federico Ferrari and Piergiorgio Vitillo

To Each His Own House: A Research on Housing between Sperimentalism and Tradition edited by Marco Lucchini

La Racchetta (the “Racket”): The Big Unfinished edited by Paolo Galuzzi and Manuela Leoni

Sesto San Giovanni and Piero Bottoni edited by Graziella Tonon