We were lucky enough to have a guided tour of the tallest skyscraper in Italy this past weekend, the Unicredit tower.
The construction of the tower, designed by César Pelli was completed in 2011 and has only recently opened its doors to the 4000 Unicredit employees who will be working there. The whole work is actually 3 towers in a circle with a gorgeous fountain and completely pedestrian piazza below measuring 100 meters in diameter. The piazza currently houses a bookshop, cafè, some shops and a Gelateria (find out the difference between Ice Cream and Gelato here). There are thousands of tiny solar panels in the piazza helping to power the buildings. The complex has won global sustainability awards and can boast a reduction in energy consumption of 37%.
The tower we went up in was tower A (The Unicredit tower) and is the tallest in Italy, clocking in at 231meters or 758 feet. We were allowed to visit the rest area on the 25th floor just before the spire begins (the entire tower is 32 floors high). As soon as the elevator opened I felt nostalgic for my days working in a cooperation as a graphic designer in London....Of course it differed from my days at Blackfriars in considerable ways due to the newness of everything and the spectacular 360° views of Milan and in the distance the majestic alps. I jokingly said to hubby that I almost wanted to work there he replied that he's look into it (... I really was just joking... I didn't really mean for him to start scouring the wanted boards for Graphic Design jobs, but oh well, the view is nice).
Sera had a great time pressing her face up against the glass and leaving the cleaners with tones of sticky fingerprints to clean up. On the way in she was gifted a giant lollipop which she proceeded to crumble and stick all over the new carpeting and on the way out they gave her a pink balloon. She thought she was in heaven.
Even if you don't have the opportunity to get to the top (or near top in my case) of the Unicredit tower you should definately visit the Piazza Beneath it and the whole renovated Porta-Nuova, Garibaldi, Corso Como area if you haven't already. I'm glad to see that Milan is doing its best to try to up its international presence in a lead-up to EXPO 2015 and that they have had such a success with this beautiful project. I was sceptical and wrongly so before I went to see it for myself but am glad to have been pursuaded otherwise.
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| Rendering of the entire PortaNuova plan with the Unicredit towers in the middle |
**All photos in this post except for the rendering copyright Fabrizio Lingesso 2013**
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