“Key in 45.4080, 9.1520 on Google, and Milanofiori Nord comes up with the pointer positioned right in the middle of the development project. The magic of the Internet. But this is story that goes way back.”
This is how Luigi Pezzoli, Chairman of the Brioschi Sviluppo Immobiliare spa, a property development Group, remembers the start of the Milanofiori area. The area is still undergoing construction but it had already become a tangible part of the Milan urban area back in 2009.
This area is a positive example of growth for Milan. As Luca Molinari points out, it provides a “laboratory that is almost unique” in constant dialogue with the region “where eight exponents of the new Italian architecture have been able to work, while matching up against each other in terms of the project”. All working on the master plan created by Erik van Egeraat.
The book takes the format of a diary-narrative telling the story unfolding in the area. It starts with the bold intentions in 1975 of creating a business centre for the advanced services sector, outside the city centre. The area identified was close to the intersection between the southern ring-road [Tangenziale Sud] and the highway towards Genoa, taking in the Municipalities of Assago and Rozzano.
The book is the first chapter in a new complex narrative for the city, which is still being written. It focuses on the quality of ideas, works and spaces and interprets the new desires that we are already discovering and experiencing.
A careful photographic analysis tells of all the buildings that have been built, with sketches and plans anticipating those to come.
The perspectives and interviews with the designers involved complete the study, together with an assessment of the master plan and its objectives tied in to a context that still has a strong agricultural component. There is also an analysis provided by Anna Barbara regarding the concept of living in the time – possibly the most ambitious challenge of a place that must match up to changing times, and find its way within a fixed architectural system. Finally, the maps of space and time by Luca Poncellini and the visionary comic strip by Michele Calzavara complete the overall picture. It is a picture that looks at the collective spaces, volumetric density, the transit from public to private spaces, the joint presence of different materials and languages that build cities and a range of experiences.
Latitudine 45°40’80’’ – Longitudine 9°15’20’’. Milanofiori Nord
edited by Anna Barbara, Simona Galateo and Luca Molinari
Graphics
studio FM milano
Editorial
viapiranesi in conjunction with Brioschi Sviluppo immobiliare
Photographs
© Filippo Romano
© Maurizio Bianchi
© Ernesta Caviola
© Paolo Riolzi
© Kenzo Tange Associates
© Renzo Piano Buildin Workshop
Photolithograph
A. De Pedrini
Printing
CTS grafica, Città di Castello – Perugia
The text, Mi riconosco nel verde on page 34 and the drawings on pages 35, 37, 85, 87 and 103 are by Massimo Bertolano.
Il masterplan e la resilienza della struttura figurativa is by Paolo Galuzzi – FOA Federico Oliva Associati