Since the 1990s, the Italian city of Milan has undergone a process of rapid transformation. The decommissioning of a number of older industrial facilities having central, inner-city locations has catalyzed a series of urbanistic developments. Playing a significant role has been a targeted treatment of green and open spaces and landscape areas in a constructive dialogue with urban planning and architecture. This exhibition, organized by AedesLand, features six exemplary projects related to this plan, all produced under the landscape planning management of Andreas Kipar and Giovanni Sala together with their international team LAND (“Landscape Architecture Nature Development”).
Established for Milan in 2005 in conjunction with the “Associazione Interessi Metropolitani” (Society for Metropolitan Interests) was the strategic masterplan RAGGI VERDI (Green Rays). This conceptualization has become the basic structure for the open area design of the city's newly developed general land use plan. The masterplan involves a wholly new strategic approach to designing Milan’s system of open spaces: up until now, the city's dense development was interrupted by green surfaces and public plazas only at a few locations. Projected for development now is a network of foot and cycling paths that are oriented by a set of eight “green rays” which will connect both previously existing as well as new open spaces. Beginning at the Mura Spagnole (Spanish Wall), these rays will extend throughout the entire metropolitan area, and will join together to form a green belt 72 km in length that will run around Milan’s periphery. Beginning in 2007, LAND has continued to develop a comprehensive open space and sustainability concept for Milan. This exhibition presents five striking projects that function as components of the RAGGI VERDI, each exemplary of Milan’s new green and open space planning:
- BICOCCA ex PIRELLI is the first instance of the transformation of a former industrial areal during the 1990s: the conversion of the expansive former terrain of the Pirelli firm inaugurated a new trend.
- PRU LEONI ex FIAT: this project rose on the former areal of the firm OM (Officine Meccaniche, Veneto). Through its redesign as a park for culture and industrial history (Parco della Cultura e delle Memorie Industriali), the terrain – formerly used in the manufacture of trucks – has emerged as an emblem of the postmodern city.
- PRU RUBATTINO ex MASERATI: here, the interplay between nature and infrastructure has generated a hitherto unknown place of life: a body of water located below the roadway becomes a new urban landscape.
- PORTELLO ex ALFA ROMEO, a project of the “new generation”: as a large green sculpture and symbol of artificial nature, an important urban protagonist for the city as a whole rises here on the former Alfa Romeo areal. Design: Charles Jencks with Andreas Kipar and LAND.
- PORTA NUOVA, a project of the American group HINES. A former gap in Milan’s urban texture, one that marked the urban profile for circa 10 years, becomes a strategically important locale: through this upgrading project, it develops into an “Expo Gate” of the newly redesigned city of Milan.
The exhibition also presents the landscape planning strategy elaborated by the LAND team for the development of the territory surrounding Milan:
- MI-LU, a project that looks toward the future, is a territorial conception for a pedestrian and cycling route along the valley of the Olona River, one that will connect the cities of Lugano and Milan. In the course of its 75 km extension, this new landscape ray will traverse 35 different communities.
Catalogue
An Aedes catalogue was published.
ISBN 978-3-937093-04-8
Italian/German/English
Price € 10,-
