Milan: 9 places to visit during the FAI Spring Days

The building on Foro Bonaparte (a cornerstone and key element of Milan's first Master Plan) was designed from the beginning as an office building. Since 1923, it has been the headquarters of Milan's historic electricity company. The five-storey building is characterised by severe and imposing façades, and in its interior reveals Art Nouveau atmospheres that can be seen in the use of concrete, wrought iron and decorated glass, including the dome-shaped glass panels of the Shareholders' Room and the Analyst's Room, made up of handmade pieces of glass in different shades.

Milanino, Italy's first garden city based on the example of the British model of garden cities, represented a comprehensive project for a multifunctional neighbourhood that combined the advantages of proximity to the city with those of the countryside. Despite the wild expansion after the Second World War, the atmosphere of the early 1900s can still be perceived here among the various types of buildings (small villas with turrets, palazzos, chalets) in eclectic, floral and dèco styles.

Inaugurated in the 1920s to replace the old Trotter located in Viale Padova, the complex constitutes, together with the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium, one of the most important hubs of Milanese sport and is still today one of the most prestigious equestrian arenas in the world. Built entirely in Art Nouveau style, the complex consists of race and training tracks, grandstands and stables, surrounded by a botanical garden. In 1999, the “Leonardo's Horse”, created by sculptor Nina Akamu from drawings by Leonardo da Vinci for the equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza, was placed at the entrance.

The four-storey building in eclectic style, located in Piazza della Scala and normally closed to the public (it is home to the city's accountant's office), reflects the style of the 1920s, using materials and styles celebrating the victory in the Great War. The formal scheme is simple and traditional: the first floor with rustic ashlar; the main floor, marked by large windows with curved gables and a balcony; the top floor with sculptures and an eclectic-themed frieze. Inside, the majestic grand staircase and prestigious furnishings from different eras stand out.

The “city of methane”, built in the 1950s at the behest of ENI Chairman Enrico Mattei, was intended to house the group's central management, research, development and distribution structures, as well as workers’ housing and related services: in addition to the health centre, schools and sports facilities, there was also a church as an element of identification for a community that came from all over the country. The church of Santa Barbara, a single-room volume with a small transept and a gabled façade reminiscent of Tuscan cathedrals, reworks traditional compositional schemes and is enriched by numerous works of art.

The church expresses an innovative and unusual design concept for a cult building of the time, having been conceived as the first of a series of replicable churches to be built in the suburbs using prefabricated industrial technology. The essential single hall volume is characterised by a reinforced concrete structure and perimeter walls of translucent ribbed glass panels separated from the floor by a band of transparent glass, an expedient that makes the structure light and almost suspended. After years of degradation caused by deterioration of materials and fire, restoration work to bring the building back to its original appearance was completed by Sbg architetti in 2014.

The residence, surrounded by a large park with swimming pool and tennis court, belonged to a refined and enlightened family of the Lombard industrial bourgeoisie, industrious but sensitive to the "bella vita". Today it is part of the "Case Museo di Milano" circuit. In 2001, the family entrusted the Villa to the FAI to make it a place to be enjoyed thanks to the pleasant garden, numerous events and the bistro in the park.

The curved glass tower, headquarters of Pwc Italia, rises imposingly in the heart of the CityLife Business & Shopping District, next to the Generali Tower designed by Zaha Hadid and the Allianz Tower designed by Arata Isozaki.  The Tower with 34 levels, including 28 habitable floors for a height of 175 metres, has been conceived with avant-garde solutions in the field of workplace design, combining space efficiency with attention to environmental sustainability and employees’ well-being.

"La Casa degli Industriali" in Via Pantano was designed by Gio Ponti in 1962 as a sober and rigorous courtyard construction in steel, concrete and glass for the offices of Assolombarda. In 2024, the Co3 Progetti Architetti Associati studio redesigned its entrance and courtyard spaces: the atrium on the ground floor, over time altered in its original configuration by the gradual addition of accessory functions that undermined the unity of Ponti’s design, is reconfigured as an urban ‘filter’ between inside and outside, freeing itself of incongruous service spaces that are repositioned on a new mezzanine; the inner courtyard (previously conceived as a ‘contemplative’ space serving only the building) is returned to the city as a space for events.