TYPE: • Tertiary and Commerce
• Office building CURRENT USE: • Council and board of Regione Lombardia HISTORICAL USE: • Pirelli s.p.a. offices LEGAL STATUS: • Property of Regione Lombardia PLAN AND CONSTRUCTION 1956 - 1960• Gio Ponti BUILDING RESTORATION 2002 - 2005• Corvino Multari Architetti Associati |
The works for building the skyscraper, commissioned by the Pirelli industrial group with the purpose of housing the company’s administrative headquarters here, started in 1956. The building stands on the borders of the large area designed for the directional center and quickly became the symbol of Milan’s industrial standards and productivity. This project is the summary of the technical and functional research on office buildings started by Gio Ponti in 1936 when designed the first Montecatini building. 
On April 18, 2002, a light aircraft piloted by Italian-Swiss Gino Fasulo, 64, crashed into the 26th floor of the building, seriously damaging the external structure provoking 3 casualties (other than Fasulo himself two employees of the Regione Lombardia were killed). After a thorough restoration of the external facades and internal spaces, the building was opened again and since May 2005 it has housed the Regional Board and the meetings of the Regional Council, which will remain here until the new headquarters of the Regione in the Garibaldi-Repubblica area are ready.
Today a memorial of the accident dedicated to the two victims is housed on the 26th floor. The top floor (# 31) of the skyscraper will soon be open to the public with a panoramic point and temporary exhibitions.
With this project, Gio Ponti displayed his expressive maturity and the clarity of the concepts he had been pursuing for 20 years: finished form, essentiality, structural invention, representativeness.
The highrise building is a symbol of modern architecture (and of the economic boom of the 1960s) and stands 127 meter tall, with its 32 floors, 70.4 meters wide and 18.5 meters deep in its central section.
In order to get workspaces that could be divided freely, the supporting structure has been limited to two pairs of flat pillars and massive supports at the ends.
Between them are the floors, entirely free for 24 or 13 meter spans. The central section houses the technical systems, lifts and facilities. The freight elevators, fire escapes and system wells are located at the ends, between the supporting bodies. The basement which the whole building rests on contains parking areas, an auditorium and the technical systems on various levels. The peculiar spindle shape, its relations with the city, the roof resting on top like a lifted lid, are some of the elements that give the building a character of monumentality and make it stand out from any other skyscraper built in those years. Ponti set four main objectives for this project: structural invention, essentiality, expressivity and illusiveness. The two last objectives have not been fully achieved. In fact, as explained by Ponti himself, as far as expressivity is concerned, the Pirelli skyscraper is certainly “vertical” on its sides but, in spite of the attempts, the horizontal lines on the façade prevail. As far as illusiveness is concerned, Ponti would have liked to reach the effect of the vertical split at both ends of the tower, which was designed as an uninterrupted light split, while it is segmented by the small balconies that where extended for structural reasons. It should be noted that the structural part of the design was carried out by engineer Pier Luigi Nervi.
The restoration project of the Pirelli skyscraper, by Corvino e Multari Associati, is important and significant, since it is the first case of restoration of a modern architectural unit in Europe.
In 2002, architects Corvino Multari Associati supervised the renovation of the auditorium in the basement: they designed the new entrance to the foyer and rearranged the functional and spatial layout of the hall and the accessory rooms. The auditorium is dedicated to Giorgio Gaber.
How to get there: By train: FFS Central Railway Station
Public transportation: MM lines 2 - 3; Overground lines 33 - 5 - 60 - 9 - 82 - 42
Modern architecture in the surrounding areas: FFS Central Railway Station; Duca Hotel
Useful information: Telephone: 02.67651
Sources: Reinhold Holl, Palazzi per uffici, Edizioni di Comunità, Milano-Stoccarda 1968
Gloria Arditi, Cesare Serratto, Gio Ponti. Venti cristalli di architettura, il Cardo, Venezia 1994
Paolo Cervino, Grattacielo Pirelli, La Nuova Italia Scientifica, Milano 1996
Franco Brevini, Francesco Radino, Grattacielo Pirelli: un capolavoro di Gio Ponti per la Lombardia, Touring Club Italiano, Milano 2004
Fulvio Irace, Medaglia d'Oro all'Architettura Italiana, Triennale Electa, Milano 2006
Sebastiano Brandolini, Architetture per Gran Milan, in Ottagono n. 186, 2005
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