Milan’s most famous abandoned building is about to become a biodiversity factory

On March 31, 1993, one thousand workers walked out of the Innocenti factories on Viale Rubattino in Milan for the last time. It marked the end of one of the city’s most significant industrial stories: the engineering company that gave its name to the iconic Lambretta scooter and, over the decades, also produced cars such as the Austin A40 and the Mini. Over the following thirty years, much of the industrial complex was either demolished or repurposed. The former offices of Innocenti Commerciale on Via Pitteri were converted into a nursing home, while the company’s research center is now used as a warehouse. Of the production facilities themselves, only one building has survived: the so-called Crystal Palace. After years of abandonment and inaccessibility, it is now set to become Milan’s future “Biodiversity Factory.”

Built in the early 1960s to house the assembly lines of the Austin A40, the Crystal Palace embodies one of the most significant phases of Italy’s industrial transformation. These were the years when factories began to be designed not only for the efficiency of production lines, but also around principles of openness, natural light, and worker well-being.

Part of the broader redevelopment of the 160,000-square-meter former Innocenti site, the project preserves the building’s original structure while completely redefining its purpose. The interiors have been stripped back, remediated, and cleared of paving, while retaining the sequence of structural bays and the glazed façades that earned the building its nickname. The historic façades facing Via Rubattino and Via Caduti di Marcinelle could not be preserved and will instead be reconstructed according to the original drawings.

The result will not be a conventional adaptive-reuse project. The Crystal Palace will become a “Green Biodiversity Factory,” a large ecological infrastructure dedicated to cultivating and propagating the plant species that will shape the district’s future landscape. Rather than a restored building, the project reimagines the former industrial structure as an environmental device: a vast urban greenhouse capable of supporting the ecological regeneration of the area while preserving the memory of its industrial past.

The rebirth of the Crystal Palace is only the first step in a much larger transformation. The building forms part of the Magnifica Fabbrica – Teatro alla Scala Park project, a new complex that will bring together workshops, storage facilities, and production spaces for Milan’s famed opera house, currently spread across multiple locations throughout the city. The intervention covers more than 160,000 square meters of the former Innocenti site and combines the preservation of industrial traces with the creation of an extensive system of public spaces and green areas.

In recent days, alongside updates on the Crystal Palace, new details have emerged about the future park that will accompany the Magnifica Fabbrica development. The project includes approximately 70,000 square meters of public green space, urban reforestation initiatives, water gardens designed for the collection and phytoremediation of stormwater, and a new floating square intended to become one of the district’s key public spaces.