10 must-see architectures of the new Milan

Built on the edge of the ancient Spanish walls, the Porta Volta complex redraws an internal limit to the city, through simple shapes that trace the scale and extent of the neighborhood.
With an openly urban character, the project is based on a sequence of portals that give rhythm to the facades and mark a volume, which in its simplicity, reconstructs a building in line, blending with the surrounding fabric. The end facades open onto the street with large windows, which, through their orientation, move the gaze toward the complex's interior. Herzog and de Meuron thus trace the echo of Aldo Rossi's rigorous architecture, expressing a marked clarity of form and structure and, at the same time, adding a piece of contemporaneity.

Known as ‘the curved’ due to its recognizable shape, the PwC tower designed by the Libeskind studio is the latest in terms of completion to configure the CityLife area. Together with the iconic buildings of Zaha Hadid and Arata Isozaki, the project of the deconstructivist architect stands out and ideally embraces Piazza Tre Torri. Although heavily modified compared to the original concept, due to a series of technical problems, the plastic body of the skyscraper is one of the new symbols of the Milanese skyline. The discontinuous facade has a series of glass cells that, through small projecting or recessed gaps, trace the concave line of the tower. At the top, the crowning is emptied and concludes the pronounced curve of the building, resolving its sculptural aspect.

In Milan, the studio founded by Cesar Pelli has engraved some of the most iconic traces of contemporary architectural and urban transformation. Already the author of the Unicredit Tower complex and the master plan for Porta Nuova, the Pelli Clarke studio has recently completed a new skyscraper. Gioia 22, surrounds the large urban park of the Biblioteca degli Alberi and builds a volume that folds and shapes the urban structure. According to Gregg Jones, partner of the study, “The original shape of the tower represents the result of the confluence of two urban fabrics and at the same time the answer to the need to optimize light and solar energy. The combination of these two factors has determined the singularity of a dynamic form capable of authentically expressing its particular location in the Milanese urban panorama.”

If CityLife and Porta Garibaldi are two hotspots for contemporary Milanese architecture, the third lighthouse of the city is undoubtedly to be found near the Scalo di Porta Romana. In front of OMA’s Prada Foundation, and the future Olympic Village designed by SOM and Desvigne, stands the Symbiosis hub. Here, the Citterio & Viel studio inserts geometric volumes that limit Piazza Adriano Olivetti. The broken lines of the building and the open space recall the sheds of the industrial buildings that dot the southern fringe of Milan. Nexxt and Building D are heavy buildings rooted to the ground, describing a new lexicon of the city’s suburbs with just a few materials, directions, perspectives, and semi-public spaces. The glazed facades contrast with the large masonry masses, which overall balance the solids and voids of these volumes that seem carved in stone.

The Carlo Erba residences try to rethink the theme of the Milanese building, changing its shape and size. Constructed as a stratification of elements, the building has a travertine base above which a set-back floor acts as a detachment from the crowning element. This sees a grid defining the space of the building, which, from time to time, is filled in or left as a virtual skeleton. Here, the mass of the building is fragmented, escaping from the grid on an urban scale, or emptied completely.
The project thus studies the shape of the building, which winds its way inside the triangular lot, leaving room for the garden and thus managing to dialogue with the various portions of the surrounding context.

The new Bocconi campus brings the typical language of the Japanese studio SANAA by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa into the Milanese fabric.
The buildings are configured as cylindrical structures, glass ribbons arranged in the lot that bends to compact the space. Covered with an aluminum expanded metal sheet, the mesh manages to dematerialize the volumes by transmitting a sense of lightness that makes the intervention almost ethereal, also thanks to the continuous chiaroscuro given by its undulating nature. Furthermore, never touching the ground, the mesh underlines the attachment to the glazed ground, visually connecting the entire intervention.
The design of the volumes then continues in the description of the lot’s perimeter, which thus generates concave and convex shapes with respect to the public space, bringing people closer and further away from the internal campus.

With Expo 2015, the Cascina Merlata area has seen considerable residential development. Here, Cino Zucchi’s studio proposes a dense fabric for vertical social housing, where residential volumes alternate in the design of the common space and gardens. Specifically, two tower buildings define a landmark for the area. Their profile tapers as the tower grows, while the facades are marked out and designed in various geometric registers. Windows, loggias, parapets, and balconies are used as design elements for the skin of the volume, which is variously engraved in contrast with the use of projecting triangular section pillars. The regular textures thus define the main character of the architecture, which finally uses color to underline vertical and horizontal trends, playing with the general composition of the houses.

In the heart of the historic city, Foster + Partners has designed the new Apple store that is digged into the ground. Although underground, the building creates a large public stairway and a resting place and square. The essentiality of the design is then expressed in the only element that rises: a glass parallelepiped, where the element of water is the protagonist. Through basins and a fountain, the studio balances the minerality of the space with a play of natural sounds and sensations.
Finally, the store’s interior recalls the idea of an excavation in the ground, a large void removed from the square, which maximizes natural lighting through the urban staircase. An urban device that reinvents the store of the famous brand, trying to reinvent the vibrant spaces of the center of Milan.

Not just buildings. The changing Milan is also made up of public spaces and parks. An example is the new park in Viale Argonne redeveloped with the construction of the M4. However, among the many redesigned spaces, the Biblioteca degli Alberi is undoubtedly the most recognizable park in recent years. Based on a project by the Inside Out studio, which has seen the collaboration of Piet Oudolf too, the design of the new park acts as an urban connector. It mends the fragments that make up the development of Porta Garibaldi, imagining an experience of urban nature. The BAM builds rooms, delimits spaces, and opens towards precise vanishing points as if it were an actual built fabric. The park thus becomes a mix between a botanical garden, a cultural campus, and an urban passage. A void made of nature and equipped spaces from which to see the rising city.

The new Porta Nuova tower will be completed in the coming months. We are talking about the UnipoSai Tower, designed by the architect Mario Cucinella, which acts as a head element for the sinuous system of piazza Gae Aulenti. With an elliptical base, the tower sees a double façade system, where an external interweaving of the structure builds the distinctive texture of the building. This, on via Melchiorre Gioia, rises, opening onto street level and generating a large entrance to the building.
Conceived as a bioclimatic machine, the closure of the tower construction site will soon mark the conclusion of a piece of Milan that has indelibly marked the contemporary season of the project, leaving behind new images, still open doubts and unexpected perspectives.