The Pineapple Towers are the latest Italian forgotten architecture rediscovered by a rapper

On the cover of Chic Nisello 2, Vegas Jones’s new project out on May 22, appears one of the strangest and most recognizable buildings in Milan’s hinterland: the “Ananas” Towers in Cinisello Balsamo. Designed by Riccardo Blumer in the 1990s for an office complex, they owe their nickname to an immediate association: two tall, rounded volumes clad in a three-dimensional skin that makes them look like an oversized tropical fruit planted on the outskirts of Milan. The façade is conceived as a system of reliefs, solids and voids, angles and shadows. It does more than simply enclose the building: it makes it recognizable from afar, turning an ordinary typology — the office block — into an almost pop urban object. A controlled oddity that, over time, has transformed a business complex into a true local landmark.

Also for this reason, Vegas Jones’s choice does not work merely as a backdrop. Born in Garbagnate Milanese and raised in Cinisello Balsamo, the rapper returns with the second chapter of the project that most closely ties him to the city, choosing the Ananas Towers as a sign of belonging. In rap, after all, places have always mattered. There is no bad boy without a suburb to name, claim, and turn into a personal myth. Marracash had already done this with Barona (Milan) in Badabum Cha Cha (2008), a video that became iconic precisely because it turned the neighborhood into a declaration of origin. That bond was recently reaffirmed with Marra Block Party, the benefit concert that brought the rapper back to the streets where he grew up.

Since that distant 2008, the list has grown longer. The Vele di Scampia have become one of the most recurring images in Italian and French rap, from PNL to Lacrim, from Guè to Enzo Dong. Liberato and Francesco Lettieri, in the videos for 9 maggio and Tu t’e scurdat’ ’e me, moved through Aldo Loris Rossi’s architecture in Naples — from Piazza Grande to the Casa del Portuale — portraying a city far from the postcard. Mahmood set Tuta Gold in Trieste’s Rozzol Melara, the same Brutalist complex chosen a few months ago by IVE for the K-pop video BANG BANG. Fabri Fibra, Emma and Baby Gang, meanwhile, chose the architecture of Busto Arsizio’s Monumental Cemetery, linked to Richino Castiglioni and Luigi Ciapparella, for In Italia 2024.

At a time when much contemporary architecture struggles to produce truly popular imagery, rap seems to have found an unexpected role: turning marginal, peripheral or brutalist buildings into elements of the collective imagination. No longer simple backdrops, but symbols of belonging, identity and urban memory.