Porta Nuova (Milan)

Coordinates: 45°28′47.6″N 9°11′33.23″E / 45.479889°N 9.1925639°E / 45.479889; 9.1925639
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

45°28′47.6″N 9°11′33.23″E / 45.479889°N 9.1925639°E / 45.479889; 9.1925639

Porta Nuova
Sovereign stateItaly
RegionLombardy
ProvinceMilan
Area
 • Total0.35 km2 (0.14 sq mi)
Time zoneUTC+01:00
Websitewww.porta-nuova.com

Porta Nuova (pronounced [ˈpɔrta ˈnwɔːva]; literally "New Gate"; Milanese: Pòrta Noeuva [ˈpɔrta ˈnøːʋa]) is one of the main business districts of Milan, Italy in terms of economy, and part of the Zone 2 administrative division. Named after the well-preserved Neoclassic gate built in 1810 on this site, it is now one of Italy's most high-tech and international districts, containing the country's tallest skyscraper: the Unicredit Tower.

Porta Nuova has a 2017 city GDP of €400 billion, which makes it Europe's richest district within any city. A concentration of companies are based in Porta Nuova, with 4% of all institutions and conglomerates found in Italy, while Milan has 40% of all these business, and Milan's Lombardy Region has 53% of it.

Industrialization is also profusely increasing within the district. A total of three Fortune 500 companies are located in it, namely Alfa Romeo, Pirelli and Techint, with a lot of other significant companies, including luxury fashion house Versace and italian football giants Internazionale. Geographical Porta Nuova was the main engine of the global invention of "polypropylene" by Giulio Natta, or in other terms, plastic, popularized by several companies within the city during the 1950s. Porta Nuova began manufacturing trams, buses, and trains, as part of Milan's public transport system which now gave Milan Europe's most advanced light rail system.

In 2019, Milan is in course to have several tax-free or flat tax services, as part of attracting domestic and international businesses which will be initiated in the area of Porta Nuova. It is also an integrated response to gain several European Union agencies from United Kingdom following Brexit and to prevent a possible economic fallout.

History[edit]

The business district is named after a Neoclassical gate built in 1810.

Porta Nuova is named after the Napoleonic gate which was erected in 1810 from a design by Giuseppe Zanoia.[1]

In the 1990s Milan, a former heavy-industry powerhouse, was filled with about 6 million square metres of industrial wastelands and unused railroad tracks; transforming such places following the example set by London and other post-industrial cities had become a primary objective for the municipal administration.[2]

The Porta Nuova business district project was born in 1997 in collaboration with American real estate developer Gerald D. Hines and his partners, Micheal Topham and Riccardo Catella; the new district took fourteen years to develop and has been built on a large area of central Milan affected by decades of urban decay,[3] after a series of failed development plans in the 1970s.

The 290,000 square metres (later increased to 346,500), US$2.5bn mixed use project was definitively approved in 2005 and was designed by three masterplanners, Pelli Clarke Pelli, Boeri Studio and Kohn Pedersen Fox.[4][5]

In 2013 Qatar Holding LLC, a unit of the Persian Gulf emirate's sovereign wealth fund, agreed to buy a 40 percent stake in Milan's newly built Porta Nuova business district to expand its Italian real estate holdings.[6] In 2015 Qatar Investment Authority agreed to buy the 60 percent of Porta Nuova it did not already own.[7]

At the end of 2017 construction works began for "Gioia 22", a new 26-story, 120 metres high tower designed by architect Gregg E. Jones of Pelli Clarke Pelli and scheduled to be completed by 2020.[8]

Area specifications[edit]

Library of Trees Park
Unicredit Tower in the Garibaldi area.

Pelli Clarke Pelli designed the largest part of the development, the "Garibaldi" area (near Garibaldi railway station), with office and retail compounds extending over 230,500 square metres.[9] It is centered on the Unicredit Tower complex, that features three office towers, of which the largest, a 31-story, 231 metres high asymmetrical tower culminating in a sculptural, 80m stainless steel spire, is currently (as of 2017) the tallest building in Italy.[10]

The "Varesine" area, named after a now demolished railway station that once connected Milan to Varese, has been designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associated and occupies 85,000 square metres.[11] The main building of this area is Torre Diamante, a 130 mentres high, diamond-shaped tower that is Italy's tallest skyscraper with a steel structure.[12]

The "Isola" area ("island" in Italian, owing its name to the fact that it was once encircled by railway lines[13]), designed by Boeri Studio, extends over 31,500 square metres.[14] Its most distinctive feature is Bosco Verticale, a pair of residential towers covered in trees and vegetation.

Proposed use and area[15]
Porta Nuova Garibaldi Porta Nuova Varesine Porta Nuova Isola
m2 ft2 m2 ft2 m2 ft2
Office 50,500 544,000 41,000 440,000 6,300 68,000
Residential 15,000 160,000 33,000 360,000 22,000 240,000
Commercial 10,000 110,000 7,000 75,000 850 9,100
Exhibitions 20,000 220,000 - - - -
Culture - - 3,000 32,000 2,360 25,400
Hotel 15,000 160,000 - - - -
Total 230,500 2,481,000 85,000 910,000 31,500 339,000
Car parks 1,200 13,000 2,000 22,000 570 6,100

Buildings[edit]

Towers and other buildings[edit]

Name Architect Type Height (m) Floors Year Headquarters Notes
Unicredit Tower
Tower A
Cesar Pelli Offices 231 35 2012 Unicredit The tower is ranking as eighth in the Emporis 2012, that rewards skyscrapers for excellence in their aesthetic and functional design.
It is 151 m tall without the spire.
Palazzo Lombardia Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Offices 161 39 2010 Regione Lombardia The building won the 2012 International Architecture Award for the best new global design.
Tallest building in Italy, 2009/2011.
Torre Diamante Kohn Pedersen Fox Offices 140 30 2012 BNP Paribas
Pirelli Tower Giò Ponti Offices 127 32 1958 Regione Lombardia Tallest building in EU, 1958-1966. Tallest building in Italy, 1958-1995.
The building was a model for the MetLife Building in New York City and Alpha Tower in Birmingham.
Gioia 22 Cesar Pelli Mixed Use 122 26+4 2020 Fideuram Bank
UnipolSai Tower Mario Cucinella Offices 120 23 U/C UnipolSai
Torre Breda Luigi Mattioni Offices 117 30 1954 Tallest building in Italy, 1954/1958. Restoration work completed in 2009.
Botanica Stefano Boeri Residential 110 2024
Torre Galfa Melchiorre Bega Hotel
Residences
109 31 1959 Meliá Hotels International
Gioia 20 East Citterio, Viel, Partners Mixed Use 104 2022
Torre Garibaldi
Tower A
Laura Lazzari Offices 100 25 1992 Maire Tecnimont
Torre Garibaldi
Tower B
Laura Lazzari Offices 100 25 1992 Maire Tecnimont
Unicredit Tower
Tower B
Cesar Pelli Offices 100 22 2012 LinkedIn, Unicredit
P39 Diller Scofidio + Renfro Mixed-Use 97 2024
Unicredit Tower
Tower C
Cesar Pelli Offices 70 12 2012 Unicredit
Piramide William McDonough Offices 70 11 2012 Google, Pandora
Torre Bonnet F. Diomede, C. Rusconi Clerici Offices 68 20 1962 Accenture
AC Hotel Tower Hotel 60 20 AC Hotels
Diamantini Kohn Pederson Fox Offices 2012 Bank of America, Canali, Celgene, China Construction Bank, HSBC, Factory Mutual, Salvatore Ferragamo, Samsung, Shire
Palaxa Goring & Straja Architects Offices 2012 AXA
The Showroom Piuarch Offices
Commercial
30 6 2013 Alexander Mc Queen, Limoni, Nike, Tesla
Green house Diller Scofidio + Renfro Mixed-Use 27 2024

Luxury residences[edit]

Name Architect Height (m) Floors Year Notes
Solaria Tower Arquitectonica 143 37 2013 Tallest residential building in Italy.
Bosco Verticale
Tower E
Stefano Boeri 111 27 2014 The building won the 2014 International Highrise Award.
The building is the first model of vertical densification of nature within a city.
Aria Tower Arquitectonica 100 17 2013
Solea Tower Caputo Partnership 79 14 2013
Bosco Verticale
Tower D
Stefano Boeri 78 18 2014 The building won the 2014 International Highrise Award.
The building is the first model of vertical densification of nature within a city.
V33 Vudafieri Saverino Partners 14 2013
Residenze di Corso Como Munoz & Albin
Cino Zucchi Architetti
2012
Corte verde di Corso Como Cino Zucchi Architetti 2013
Residenze dei Giardini Lucien Lagrange 2012
Ville di Porta Nuova M2P Associati 2013

Other buildings[edit]

Name Architect Type Height (m) Floors Year Notes
Unicredit Pavilion / E3 West Building Michele De Lucchi Convention centre 22 3 2015
Coima Pavilion / E3 East Building Mario Cucinella Office 3 2016
Casa della Memoria Baukuh Museum 3 2015 Museum dedicated to the Italian resistance movement
Fondazione Riccardo Catella Culture 2 Hub for the urban development
Incubatore per l'arte Culture 2

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy (10th ed.). London: John Murray. 1866. p. 179. ISBN 978-1333430863.
  2. ^ Galbraith, Robert (11 July 2007). "An urban renaissance is transforming Milan" (PDF). International Herald Tribune. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  3. ^ Seal, Mark (2016). Raising The Bar: The Life and Work of Gerald D. Hines. Bainbridge Island, Washington, USA: Fenwick Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9889261-5-8.
  4. ^ Bullivant, Lucy (2012). Masterplanning futures. London: Routledge. pp. 198–199. ISBN 978-0415554473.
  5. ^ Wallach, Brett (2015). A World Made for Money: Economy, Geography, and the Way We Live Today. Lincoln, Nebraska, USA: University of Nebraska Press. p. 321. ISBN 978-0803298910.
  6. ^ "Qatar Buys 40% Stake in Milan's Porta Nuova Business District". Bloomberg. 16 May 2013. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  7. ^ "Qatar Gets Full Control of Milan's Porta Nuova District". Bloomberg. 27 February 2015. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  8. ^ "Gioia22: arriva un altro grattacielo a Porta Nuova". Archiportale.com. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  9. ^ "Porta Nuova Garibaldi: Area". www.porta-nuova.com. Porta Nuova official website. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  10. ^ Crosbie, Michael J. (2013). Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. Basel: Birkhauser. p. 278. ISBN 978-3034608251.
  11. ^ "Porta Nuova Varesine: Area". www.porta-nuova.com. Porta Nuova official website. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  12. ^ Veljkovic, Milan; Hauke, Bernard; Kuhnhenne, Markus; Lawson, Mark (2016). Sustainable Steel Buildings: A Practical Guide for Structures and Envelopes. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 258. ISBN 978-1118741115.
  13. ^ Michelin Must Sees Milan & Italian Lakes. Boulogne-Billancourt: Michelin Travel Partners. 2015. p. 70. ISBN 978-2067197541.
  14. ^ "Porta Nuova Isola: Area". www.porta-nuova.com. Porta Nuova official website. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  15. ^ "Project data: area (in Italian)". www.porta-nuova.com. Porta Nuova official website. Retrieved 22 December 2017.