The first core of the University dates back to 1936 and is the result of an adaptation of the project drawn up by the municipal corporation: an unimpressive project that, under Pagano’s artistic and technical direction, gained new life and resulted in one of the most significant works of the Milanese architect.
In 1953, Giovanni Muzio designed student halls and canteens in a Y-shaped five-floor building located north of the preexisting building. 
Between 1962 and 1966, Muzio was entrusted with designing a new building reserved for institutes and the library with reading hall.
In 1971, engineer Vittore Ceretti designed an additional expansion for the Scuola di Direzione Aziendale (Business Management School).
A new building intended for classrooms was built after Ignazio and Jacopo Gardella’s project between 1990 and 2001: it is a four-floor elliptical building, in which classrooms are laid out in a radial pattern around a central atrium covered by a skylight.
Gardella’s project included a second building, which has never been built and whose site was used for the latest expansion, developed according to the competition-winning project by Grafton Architects.
Finally, the Egea Library opened in 2003: it is an elegant and bright interior project, designed by Mauro Galantino and characterized by showcases used as screens for backlit projections in which the latest market novelties are presented.
The basic idea of the latest expansion project by Grafton Architects is a reference to the architectural style of the Broletto.
Conceived as a covered square, the complex houses offices, workshops, several services and the great hall.
The façade on Viale Bligny looks like a great window open to the town, an evidence of the cultural and symbolic role played by the Università Bocconi in Milan.
From outside, the large volume of the great hall can be glimpsed through this opening.
The building, which is recessed from Viale Bligny and Via Röntgen, includes a public space of 18x90 meters that is a kind of filter between the university and the city.
Offices look as if they were suspended, clear glass volumes that are perceived, from inside the campus, as hanging elements, connected through passageways that join and divide them at the same time, thus differentiating their various functions. Offices form a penthouse level, whose clear covering enables light to reach all levels.
The structure is particularly interesting. Reinforced concrete walls, the so-called beam-walls, support the main covering beams, to which all floors of the underneath levels cling by means of steel suspenders. Like a bridge, this building is made of hanging volumes and floors.
The underground great hall consists of two joined volumes, which can accommodate 600 people and 400 people each. The maze of courtyards, bridges, terraces and corridors create movements and overlapping of spaces, and help to create peculiar relationships between the university expansion and the town, with views, uneven volumes and open spaces.
How to get there: Public transportation: overground lines 79 - 15 - 9 - 19 - 30
Modern architecture in the surrounding areas: Residential towers in the OM area; Three parks in the Ravizza district
Useful information: Telephone: 02.58361
Sources: Sebastiano Brandolini, Milano NUova Architettura, Skira, Milano 2005
Cecilia Bolognesi, Matteo Piazza, Design City Milan, Wiley, Chichester 2007
Stefano Casciani, Learning from Dublin, in Domus n. Allegato al N. 900, 2007
Stefano Casciani, Ultimo monumento a Milano, in Domus n. 909, 2007
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