In a Milan that questions its transformations, without ceasing to multiply them, comes from the area of CityLife the news of another illustrious collapse. This time, however, it's not an unexpected event, like the collapse of the sign on the roof of the Generali Tower; it's a planned collapse, the one that on July 28 completed the demolition of the Agriculture Pavilion, a project by Ignazio Gardella that since 1961 faced Via Gattamelata, in the middle of the old Fiera Campionaria.

In its place is planned the construction of the new Rai Production Center, a piece of a larger operation with which the state-owned radio-TV station reorganizes its presence in the city, which began in the late 1930s with the Rai building in Corso Sempione, a project by Gio Ponti where Italian television was born.  

Gardella's pavilion, with the migration of Fiera to Rho, had remained in the Mi.Co exhibition and convention center grounds, but it was already born as part of a rethinking of Fiera, which in the 1950s wanted to give itself a more solid, urban image to offer to new and larger markets. The structure was metal, but the street façade was a perfect example of architecture à la Gardella, and combined the modernity of a double-height curtain wall glazing with the sophistication of a basement made of Vicenza stone and a Milanese identity trait such as dark red clinker, relying instead on bright red for the entire score of metal details that framed the openings. Part of the Lombardy Cultural Heritage census, however, the building was not of the required age of 70 years to be listed, a fact that posed one less obstacle to its demolition.

Opening image: Ignazio Gardella, Palazzo dell'agricoltura at the Milan Trade Fair, 1961. Publifoto photo. Courtesy Fondazione Fiera Milano Archives