Week 14 - Turin and Milan

        Boungiorno Friends and Family,

        I think this was the trip I had been looking forward to the most because it would allow us to see some cities that had a larger amount of new architecture and skyscrapers. On our trip we ventured north to the cities of Turino and Milano. These two cities were very different from many of the other cities we had visited and certainly had more of an international city feel, meaning it wasn't just Italians that lived or owned property here. On our trip, we got some tours of both the cities by local architects and they showed us many new developments throughout the city. 

Our first stop was Turino which was a very industrial city. Lots of the projects we saw here were adaptive reuse projects turning old factories into other successful buildings instead of just tearing them down. Some of the projects reminded me a lot of what I was doing last semester in Saint Louis working on turning an old steel factory into a Museum and Material Lab. Saint Louis could take lots of notes from the successful projects of Turinoas they enter into a period of adaptive their old favorites and buildings into new places of business. 

Our first stop was an old Fiat Factory turned into a multifunction building including a college, mall, art gallery, and movie theater. This project was designed by Renzo Piano and was a great example of how you can turn old buildings into successful pieces of architecture without tearing down the building and starting all over.

My favorite part about this building was the fact that they had a race track on the roof of the building that they used to test the cars on. Now the track is used as a rooftop grade with a walking path with several pieces of sculptural art.

Next, we visited another adaptive reuse project where they turned an old factory near the University into a concert venue, college campus expansion, and cafe.

The interior had a string industrial feel but it was complimented well with several types of bright artwork to help warm the space up and make it feel more inviting.

Then we visited a modern church that was designed by Mario Botta. He is the the same architect as the winery where I proposed. If you go back to my other post you can probably see many similar styles used between the two buildings, especially in the exterior.

My favorite part of this church was the wood art piece at the front illustrating the shroud of Turino.

All around the church, there was so much decorated woodwork I couldn't imagine designing to that level of detail and working with the contractors to make it a reality.

The old factory building turned into a park with basketball courts and a skatepark

The other big highlight of Turino was getting to visit the Egyptian Museum which is the second-best collection of Egyptian Antiquities after the museum in Cairo. Italy just happened to lead several archeological expeditions early on and was able to acquire several antiquities.

My favorite exhibit was a tomb they displayed in the same position it was found within the tomb.

Several pieces of Egyptian art are well protected due to the fact it was protected in tombs. Similar to how Pompei was covered in ash protecting it from the elements. 

These two sculptures are interesting because they are from the Ptolemaic period when the Greeks and the Egyptians were starting to merge their cultures. You can see how the Greek style of sculpture was effecting the Egyptian style.

Turino also had a ton of arcades. These are covered sidewalks that allow the buildings to have extra sq ft on the second floor by extending over the sidewalk.

After our visit to Turino, we headed to Milano and that evening we took advantage of exploring the city. The great thing about big cities like Milano is the public transportation is fantastic. We quickly found a tram line to take us to the center of the city where we were able to see the Milano cathedral. This cathedral is the largest one in Italy but because we were more focused on the modern architecture of Milan this is not a cathedral we went inside of.

The main reason we wanted to head to the city center was to visit the Starbucks reserve. Now before you get mad at me for going to Starbucks while in Italy let me defend myself by saying there are only 6 Starbucks Reserves in the world. They are really fancy compared to a regular Starbucks and have specially brewed coffee that is unique to each of their locations. They also have a really nice cocktail bar that specializes in coffee cocktails. We sampled a few of their specialty drinks and enjoyed the amazing atmosphere the reserve had to offer.

The next day we started our architectural tour of the city at Porto Nouvo. Porto Nouvo is a large upscale residential, commercial, and shopping district near the center of Milan that includes some impressive skyscrapers and a large public park called the Library of Trees. This area was developed to connect three existing areas of Milan that we falling into decay. When this area was under development it was the largest construction site in all of Europe. Now the area has high-end apartments and expensive retailers occupying the space. This amount of money also draws in great architecture and now acts as one of the main symbols of Milan.

The Library of Trees is another really unique aspect of this area creating a public park near the center of the city that has over 100 botanical species.

Adjacent to the Library of Trees is Bosco Verticale (The Vertical Forrest). These two skyscrapers are amazing because they are covered with over 1000 trees and bushes from top to bottom. These towers started a trend of green building across the world but this is certainly the most amazing example. The towers have irrigation systems built into them to water the trees and keep them growing strong. The idea of these buildings is to grow more plants than you would normally be able to in that amount of space they are helping take in even more carbon dioxide. However, keeping the building looking green and beautiful is crazy expensive and tenants of the building have to pay extra to help finance this goal. 

Another new modern area of Milano is called CityLife. This is another residential, commercial, and shopping district near the center of Milan. This area includes three tall skyscrapers high-end apartments and a mall with new developments still coming. All of these buildings were designed by well known international architects that get selected for some of the best projects. This goes to show that Milano is the design center of the world. The most interesting thing to me about these skyscrapers was that even though Milan has the tallest skyscraper in Italy, there are still 87 taller skyscrapers in New York City alone. So in relation to the world, these towers don't stack up in comparison.

The rest of our afternoon was spent at Salone del Mobile Milano which is a huge furniture design expo. All of the best furniture designers and companies set up large displays to highlight their designs. We spent 4 hours there and only got through 4 of the 16 exhibit halls. It was really a designer's dream because you could try out all of these amazing products that hopefully you can include in your designs.

This is what one of the exhibits looked like. each company built its own room trying to give you an experience that would leave a lasting memory so you would hopefully buy their product.

The last stop on our tour of Milano was the Prada Foundation. The Prada Foundation is a modern art museum that was originally a distillery. They adaptively reused some buildings on the campus while also designing new additions to house art exhibits. There were several designs involved in creating this place including my favorite movie director Wes Anderson, who designed the cafe. It was really interesting to see the blend of new and old architecture coming together to create this beautifully thought-out campus. My favorite part was the material they used to clad one of the new buildings which was made from molten aluminum that had been filled with bubbles of air when cooling.

I really enjoyed the nice change of pace this trip offered compared to several of the other historical places we have visited. Getting to ride the subway and seeing large glass skyscrapers reminded me that the world we are living in is changing very quickly. Most of the buildings that I mentioned in Milan we built within the last 10 to 20 years. Who knows what this city will look like in the next 10.