THE NEW MILAN AMONG INNOVATION, TRADITION AND HISTORY

Milan, an industrious city and centre of business pro¬jected towards the future, has completely redesigned its skyline in recent years, thanks to heavy investment in real estate, without abandoning the past but integrating it with futuristic new structures. We find the highest expression of this integration in the Porta Nuova, Isola and Garibaldi districts. The old Isola district, with its bohemian-style autonomous identity, contrasts with the new Porta Nuova district that has redeveloped a vast area of Milan by proposing new connections between previously separate places. And then Porta Garibaldi with its movida and the New Porta Nuova Quarter: contemporary Milan.
The urban redevelopment plan, which started in 2009 and led to the area winning the International Highrise Award in 2014, covered the entire area between Porta Garibaldi the Isola district and the former Porta Nuo¬va railway yard (also known as “delle Varesine”), now replaced by the Porta Garibaldi station. A project that, thanks to the signature of a pool of internationally renowned architects, has redesigned the area by inserting complexes of buildings for mixed use, tertiary, commercial and residential, and united by a pedestrian system enriched by green areas, squares, bridges and cycle paths.

Among the most significant buildings are the complex of towers overlooking Gae Aulenti square – including the one that houses the Unicredit offices, with its famous flagpole lit up at night – the Torre Diamante, the Samsung District and, in the lively Isola district (a large park also known as the ‘Library of Trees’), the famous Bosco Verticale designed by architect Boeri, a specimen of two residential towers that, with its 8. 900 square metres of expertly planted terraces, host different tree species aimed at enhancing biodiversity in a vertical expression for the Isola district that proudly welcomes the presence of the Riccardo Cotarella Foundation whose mission is to spread the culture of social responsibility through its work in the area.

Gae Aulenti square, on the other hand, with its splendid fountains and its 2300 square metres of circular space, represents the new face of the changing city, a point of convergence of the urban redevelopment of these neighbourhoods. It is precisely this area that has been the protagonist of the change in the skyline of the entire city, for the various buildings over ten storeys high that have sprung up in recent years in integration with the other, lower buildings, which are also modern in design and concept.
From the square, one descends towards Corso Como, in one of the city’s most iconic areas and also one that has become a symbol of the ‘Milan of drinking’, where the new luxurious residences were created to unite the “case di ringhiera” and contemporary architecture with the urban specificities of the Garibaldi district.