Showing 1-9 of 9 results
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Casa Fontana Silvestri
Block out the Vespa traffic and shoppers hauling Dolce & Gabbana bags, and you can imagine from this classic Lombard edifice what this street must've looked like eight centuries ago. Ornamental cotto (baked clay) window frames attributed to Bramante grace the spare exterior, while scowling masks in the capitals above the stone door make a dramatic entrance.
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Nuova Fiera di Milano Rho-Pero
Billowing glass sails by architect Massimiliano Fuksas ingeniously cover the oil stains where the Agip refinery once stood, and float over 1.3 kilometres of reclaimed exhibition space. A $750-million marvel of engineering made with 100,000 glass pieces, this magical megastructure levitates the bar for the Salone del Mobile and other events held here - and Italian architecture, too.
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Palazzo Reale
Talk about versatile: Milan's medieval Town Hall became a Visconti villa in the 13th-century, Spanish hacienda in the 16th, Empress Maria Theresa's palace in the 18th, and World War II bombing target. Now it's being remodelled to house Milan's art collections. Meanwhile, the ground floor hosts touring exhibitions ranging from Helmut Newton: Sex & Landscapes to Caravaggio.
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Pirelli Skyscraper
The upstart that broke the rules and outgrew the Madonnina atop the Duomo is widely admired for its fine bone structure: glass skin pulled tautly over a carefully calibrated, reinforced concrete base. Lead architect Gió Ponti's landmark has not only stood the test of time for 50 years, but even withstood an accidental plane crash into the building in 2002.
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San Francesco di Paola
Tucked in among sprawling temples to fashion in the Quadrilatero d'Oro, this little gem of a church outshines Armani's glittering megastore across the street. Although commissioned by the Minimi order in 1728, it's hardly minimalist, but tricked out in Baroque pomp with gilt galore, a graceful 1890 neoclassical façade, and a chapel altarpiece by Guerini.
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Sant'Eustorgio
Like Milan's fusion restaurants, this façade is a mish-mash of styles that somehow works. Sant'Eustorgio was built in the 9th century, updated in the 11th, boosted with Bramante's baptistery in the 15th, and given a neo-Romanesque look in the 19th; today, its harmonious exterior belies its rabble-rousing past as Milan's Inquisition centre.
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Stazione Centrale
Some call it mighty, others call it mighty ugly, but the 1931 Central Station is certainly the most unavoidable monument in Milan. Nearly 100 million people every year pass through these hulking portals, up escalators past Fascist mosaics extolling the virtues of Lombardy (mostly culinary), and onward to train platforms and parts unknown.
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Torre Branca
The spindly legs on this steel tower may not inspire you to take the 10-minute lift ride 108 metres to the viewing platform, but not to worry: Gió Ponti's 1930s engineering feat was safety-reinforced in 2003. Go at night to watch lights twinkle, and lord it over the Just Cavalli Caffé bouncers below.
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Torre Velasca
Is this top-heavy tower the headquarters of some superhero's archnemesis, a postmodern prison block or a watchtower for companies paranoid about corporate espionage? Studio BBPR's signature tower with a bigger, medieval-style block grafted on top was finished in 1958, and almost half a century later, it's still fascinatingly sinister.
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Showing 1-9 of 9 results
