MILAN’S NEW FINANCE ZONE
In a city known for fashion and design, one would expect Milan to be more beautiful (with the exception of the magnificent Gothic cathedral). But where picture-postcard architecture is lacking, cutting-edge modernism is going up.
Directly behind the Principe di Savoia hotel is the brand-new Porta Nuova financial district (porta-nuova.com), where expansive walkways, steps and pedestrian bridges take you all the way up to Porta Garibaldi station, where high-speed trains connect to Rome and beyond.
Walking through the Porta Nuova Varesine zone, an exhibition of photography from the archives of Vogue Italia covers the ground-floor windows of several gleaming blocks (a gallery will be opening here). Here you’ll also see the 30-storey Diamond Tower by Kohn Pedersen Fox.
Nearby, Porta Nuova Isola features Stefano Boeri’s two Vertical Forest residential blocks, which are built like jumbled Jenga towers with gravity-defying balconies planted with almost 1,000 trees. Danish jeweller Pandora has leased office space in another building, along with the Google Italia HQ.
It’s Porta Nuova Garibaldi that really catches the eye, with its 231-metre-high curving Unicredit tower that spirals up at one corner to form a spire. It is the tallest building in the country and can be seen from almost anywhere in Milan. At its base is the circular Gae Aulenti piazza, which has a fountain in its centre and is surrounded by chairs for al fresco coffee from the Feltrinelli RED bookstore.
There is also the eye-catching Solar Tree by Welsh designer Ross Lovegrove – an organic-looking cluster of streetlights that are powered by the sun – and an installation of giant, bronze “ear trumpets” by Alberto Garutti, which connect to a shopping mall below, amplifying the voices of people who speak into them.
Despite it being a business district, at the weekends it is abuzz with families and locals who come to shop in its new retail outlets – Nike and Muji are already here, with more on the way.
Walk past the ear trumpets, under a roof with a toilet-seatshaped hole in it (allowing views up the side of yet another polished skyscraper), and you will be back in the Milan of old. Here you can pop into 10 Corso Como (10corsocomo.com), a boutique hotel, restaurant, concept store, art gallery and bookshop founded in the nineties by Carla Sozzani, former editor of Italian Elle and Vogue.
At the end of the street is a heaven for gourmands. Eataly (eataly. com), Italy’s version of the US Whole Foods Market chain, opened its enormous flagship last March. If you aren’t going to stop by one of the pop-up branches at the Expo, you can come here instead to stock up on truffles, Parmesan and prosecco, or sample an authentic
piadina, a thin, scone-like flatbread folded in half and stuffed with prosciutto and fior di latte cheese.