news
- 03.04.2008
Restoration of the Pirelli skyscraper.
Milan, Italy
auditorium
In 1998 the Lombardy Regional Government announced two international competitions for refurbishment projects in its headquarters, the Pirelli building: the Auditorium (won by Corvino+Multari) and the Belvedere on the 31st floor (won by Renato Sarno). For the auditorium, in particular, affording some 1000 m2 of floor space and destined to serve as a Conference Centre, the key principle was to be guided by the intention of Giò Ponti. It was decided to retain the long sequence of exposed beams characterizing the volume of the interior, and provide the main access route into the auditorium from the piazza. In a mirror image of the original design, a small cut was made in the elevated garden along the front overlooking the piazza, creating an access way to connect the foyer with the street. This feature renders the Conference Centre easily identifiable and accessible, while maintaining the integrity of the overall complex. From the entrance hall, new stairways and lifts connect the foyer beneath to the auditorium, services and ancillary areas. The tower block housing the offices of the Lombardy Regional Authority communicates with the ground floor via the access way created along the internal ramp, which connects directly to the foyer. The functional layout of the new conference area is organized around the main 348-seater auditorium. Visitors enter by way of a vestibule area, from which a stairway and a lift take them up to the original two-stories-high foyer where the reception, wardrobes and screens are located. The foyer provides the main entrances to the auditorium, which is laid out with seats organized in three sections split by an aisle.
Visibility of the proceedings is assured by the retention of the original staggered rows of seats and the inclusion of a raised platform. The walls of the access area and auditorium are clad in makoré wood. The decor also features floors of prefinished wood, light-coloured rubber and elements in glass and satin-finished steel. The structures of the auditorium, designed by Pierluigi Nervi, are accommodated in a suspended ceiling of microperforated panels filling the spaces between the beams overhead. The new entrance on the Piazza Duca d’Aosta features a roofing system located at the level of the existing lawn, between the void and the overhang of the forecourt roof, defining the external public space. General restoration work on the Pirelli tower began following the accident on 18 April 2002, when a light aircraft hit the building. There were three basic guidelines for the project: an organic conception; proper compliance with principles of conservation and restoration; observance of current safety, comfort and energy saving requirements. This also serves to underscore the monumental value of a building long considered - both by the people of Milan and by Italians at large - to represent the conjunction of entrepreneurial intelligence and polytechnic culture.
exterier of building/view from 21st floor
The refined elegance of its three-dimensional profile and its singular formal completeness are still strikingly evident to any visitor “disembarking” at Milan’s Stazione Centrale. In the words of Ponti himself, the skyscraper is an “opera finita”, an exemplum of what architecture can ultimately be likened to: a crystal. The project responds to the need for a new functional balance in institutional facilities, for conferences and meetings, communication, shows and exhibitions. This is achieved in concept and in composition with three attributes, par excellence, of the high rise building: its streamlined structure; the transparency dictated by maximum freedom and usefulness of the interior; and the unity of conception that links architectural organism and furnishings. From a methodology standpoint, accordingly, knowledge of the building is an absolute premiss both for evaluating the general notion of the project and for addressing problems connected with conservation, in order to establish on a caseby- case basis whether the situation merits painstaking conservation or bold renovation.
The purpose of the project, and its main theme, is to restore the integrity of the monument by renewing its status as executive headquarters of the Lombardy Regional Authority, through an improved distribution and clarity of its functions, introducing new support services and technological systems, adopting a different hierarchy and a layout respectful of the original spaces. In detail, design solutions were adopted for the refurbishment of certain reception areas (access from Via Fabio Filzi), distribution of serial spaces and the relative architecture (offices), repair and finishing of existing spaces (31st floor), organization and accessibility of ancillary areas (housing systems and utilities), philological reinstatement of certain spaces in accordance with the formative ideas of Ponti (one floor per office), also the recovery of formal and material quality, and of a certain presentational value of functional areas (auditorium).
entrance hall of the building/hall
client: Lombardy Regional Government, emergency services commissioner Roberto Formigoni
architectural design: Corvino+Multari s.r.l., Renato Sarno group s.r.l.
Corvino+Multari
Vincenzo Corvino (Naples 1965) graduated as architect in 1990. Since 1993 he has been Specialist in Urban Design at the Federico II University in Naples. He has been advisor to the Order of Architects of Naples since 1990. Giovanni Multari (Cosenza 1963) graduated as architect in 1991, and in 1997 became Doctor of Research in Urban Design at the Ministry for University Education and Scientific Research in Rome. In 1995, the two set up their Corvino+Multari Associated Architects practice, headquartered in Naples and with offices in Milan and Cosenza. They established their reputation in a number of competitions, thereafter designing public and private offices, residential buildings and renewal projects for open public spaces. In 2000 they won the European “Luigi Cosenza” Award for the Piazza die Bruzi in Cosenza, and in 2001, the Premio Centocittà sponsored by the Compagnia di San Paolo, for their renovation of the Quartiere Militare Borbonico in Casagiove. Since 2000 they have been founder members of the Aid’A Italian Architecture Agency. Designs and implementations have been shown at exhibitions in Milan, Rome, Naples, Bolzano, Graz, Prague and Havana, and published in national and international architectural journals. In 2006, their work on the Pirelli building won them the Triennale Gold Medal, a Special Award for Restoration projects.
