Milan is going through unprecedentedly rapid changes that are transforming the city. Stefano Boeri, Cecilia Bolognesi and Stefano Casciani consider its recent history and try to predict what happens next. Photography by Gabriele Basilico, Marco Introini.

See also: The city with three souls

The visible city
by Stefano Casciani
Anybody who believes that Italy’s great cities have become incapable of growth and change is making an understandable mistake. Milan in particular is indeed going through a major restructuring. But the processes of urban renewal which in other economies and cultures are fiercely debated, criticised or backed by public opinion and the media, in Italy tend to be passed over in silence or even general indifference. Yet even the most casual visitor can hardly fail to notice that an unprecedented surge of rebuilding is under way in Milan. This is due in part to areas previously unimaginable in quantity and quality being made available by the gradual disappearance of an urban industrial economy; but also, and equally, to an economic situation where investors have sought refuge again in real estate. Hence the radicalised top end of the housing market, by now inaccessible to the less affluent classes for want of a public housing policy. The origins, though, of this wave of rebuilding in Milan are not all that remote. Cecilia Bolognesi identifies them partly with the collapse of traditional planning tools during the first half of the ’90s, when the Redundant Lands Scheme introduced a law known as the Piani di Recupero Urbano (PRU), a useful step forward, but also one that sparked a sometimes uncontrolled spate of private initiatives such as the ex-OM, Quarto Oggiaro, Rubattino, Lorenteggio and Piazzale Lodi. The agreements between private concerns and public administration, which were supposed to have ensured the quality and implementation of these PRU projects, did not in fact always achieve their aim. The danger of the real estate market gaining the upper hand soon made itself felt, and in one or two instances it caused new urban hybrids that actually polluted the suburban, dignifiedly Sironian townscape poetically immortalised in its time by other artists, from writers like Testori to photographers like Gabriele Basilico. And yet, even against this background of frenzied expansion and missed opportunities (such as “Fashion City” in the Garibaldi/Isola district, which has raised doubts among its already resident population; or the Museum of the Present at the Bovisa, already announced several years ago with an exhibition by artists at the Triennale, but which hasn’t even started to be built), there are a few plans which undoubtedly boost the image of Milan as a contemporary city in its architecture too. The complex between Piazza Zavattari and Viale Monte Rosa, which includes the new headquarters of the financial paper Il Sole 24 Ore, designed by Renzo Piano, will create a landmark for the whole northern part of the city and won’t be far from the old Trade Fair, likewise to be largely demolished and rebuilt, partly as an urban park and partly as a residential area. People concerned about good architecture are keeping an anxious eye on the vicissitudes of the Porta Vittoria Library, designed by Bolles and Wilson. They are not too happy, either, about the apparently slow progress of David Chipperfield’s Ansaldo Museum. Areas of jurisdiction and interest, utopias and legislation, concern and optimism are all rolled into an unpredictable scenario which these pages seek to explain at least in part. SC

Work in progress
by Cecilia Bolognesi
A new era in Milan’s history as Italy’s most dynamic city was supposedly ushered in by the adoption of a series of urban redevelopment plans (PRU) intended to guide its future in 1995. A resolution was passed by the city which, in conjunction with the ‘Outlines for the formulation’ specified for these redevelopment plans, provided the necessary feasibility to those measures. Planning schedules were agreed to legitimise and endorse public-private proposals to deal with the great voids in the city’s fabric. In the same year, the Milan Triennale presented a series of ‘utopias’ for the creation of ‘Nine parks for Milan’. That was in fact the last time that anybody tried to formulate a comprehensive urban development scheme for the city, opting for parks and gardens as the mainstay of a newly configured architectural and cityscape policy. But it wasn’t the first time that an attempt on that scale had failed to adopt a realistic implementation strategy. And sure enough, it ended up as a dead letter, suffocated by its inability to look beyond its own internal logic. But other plans have nevertheless found their way into being, based on legislative and quantifiable imperatives, rather than utopian visions. These plans are mainly concerned with residential building (1600 unsubsidised, 1100 semi-subsidised, and 500 public housing homes, plus a small number of units for university accommodation are planned). They also include the production, business and commercial activities, such as the Esselunga supermarkets designed by Gardella or Caccia Dominioni and in the future perhaps also by Norman Foster, that inevitably seem to accompany every major new expansion of the city. The plans account for approximately a third of all the city’s existing areas of potential transformation, whereas the operation inaugurated by the Piani Integrati di Intervento (PII) affects about 3 million m2 of land and will bring some 2.4 million m2 of new gross floor space onto the market. These plans, as indicated in the ‘Documento di inquadramento delle politiche urbanistiche comunali’ (‘Urban Planning Policy Paper’), provide mainly for residential and commercial functions comprising small and medium retail complexes, with the exception of the large-scale projects for Montecity and Portello. These plans act surgically on areas of variable dimensions, most of which had been trapped for years by regulations too far removed from the workings of a changing urban market. They range from the extremely central Piazza Fontana, to the areas of Porta Vittoria or ex-Marelli adjacent to the previous Bicocca development, and from the Portello to the Montecity zones. Montecity is located in south east Milan. Resulting from the merging of two disused industrial sites, the Redaelli steel works and the Montedison factories, it represents a potential of more than one million m2 of building. It is the largest single private development likely to be attempoted in Milan for the forseeable future, and it will produce around 270,000 m2 of housing, 304,000 m2 of public parking space, 333,000 m2 of parks and gardens, and 65,000 m2 of land allocated to public facilities, prominent among which will be the congress centre. The project, by Paolo Caputo and Giovanni Carminati, relies on a central park to create an interface between Montecity, to the north and Rogoredo to the south. In both cases residential estates are structured on pedestrian axes embellished by fountains or canals and faced by shops, restaurants and services. To the north, a wide Crescent will offer luxury homes, and a multiplex building combined with a multimedia centre on one side, and the congress centre with business facilities on the other, will end a long promenade. Two public plans have taken shape in recent months, both in central Milan: Portello, and the Garibaldi area. The first is the result of disused industrial plants (Alfa Romeo and Lancia) and is part of the programme to gradually push the Trade Fair farther out. It is designed under a single master plan by Gino Valle, who also did some of the architecture for the north sector, including a shopping complex and a covered square. Meanwhile two other sectors are being designed by two other architects. Here too, the plan envisages a large park. Designed by Charles Jencks and Andreas Kipar, it is crossed by a road link from the tympanum of the new trade fair to Piazzale Accursio and as far as Cino Zucchi’s residential towers. Next to these, the same architect has redesigned a former canteen building. This is also renewed and reinvented structurally and will accommodate collective facilities. To the west, beyond Viale Scarampo, Guido Canali will be contributing to this master plan with a large court, the inner side of which will be defined by broad flights of steps leading down into it, whilst an inner part will comprise a sequence of tower buildings facing the new park. Still unclear is the future large and very central park for the Garibaldi area, in a project scheduled for architectural competition in the near future. This will take the form of a campus on which a continuation of Via Pirelli will be occupied by the new City and County Council building. To the south, a continuation of Corso Como will provide the site for Milan’s future ‘fashion city’. The Garibaldi project also lays down a series of general morphological guidelines for the area adjacent to the ex-Varesine, while contemplating for the park perimeter an urban ring road. This will erase the ‘interchange effect’ which roads in this zone have assumed in recent years. At least the general design of this thorny area seems – after many years – to have been accomplished. However, progress with the areas gained from the disused ‘diamond’ buildings in the old Trade Fair area, with its 260,000 m2 suddenly restored to the city, appears more shaky. The President of the Trade Fair and the city council have, after consultations, personally outlined a number of possible guidelines for renovation, but the answer probably lies in a competition/contract with participation by interested parties such as financial institutions, engineering design organisations and so on. The economic value of the operation is mind-boggling. The ensuing propositions will be judged on the merits of their programming and management, financial offers and architectural solutions. One thing is sure, and that is the promise of 130,000 m2 allocated to parks and gardens. The rest remains to be seen, once the bids for tender have been settled. Meanwhile an official announcement is awaited. And considering the stakes, it will be a milestone in Milan’s town-planning history. Meanwhile, not far from the Fair, the areas close to the stadium but also to the San Siro riding stables and track are the subject of cyclical planning considerations. Amid uncertainty over these cases, but with the certainty that Aldo Rossi’s dual project for the sports stadium once located here is to be permanently erased, the development agency for this newly established area now reveals a plan by Stefano Boeri for the reunification of areas adjoining the stadium. This will be an attempt to save them from their present fate as an immense parking lot and waste land enclosure and to convert them to much worthier uses. With a slogan – the fourth ring of the stadium – this plan envisages a sort of large belt. By containing the new ticket offices, it will become the main foyer of San Siro. Located in this highly (though not exaggeratedly permeable) structure, which may indeed be defined as the interior and exterior of the ring, will be cafés, bookshops, shopping centres a small multiplex, and daily events. These will also be linked to the newly defined park and will guarantee vitality and popularity by notably increasing the enjoyment and use of the area as a whole. The building’s section is curious for the feeling of movement suggested by it, while among the project’s intentions the ground plan indicates a containment and regulation of the flow of spectators to the stadium.
Cecilia Bolognesi