Palazzo Missori

Palazzo Missori is a redevelopment project involving a historic 1938 building by Marcello Piacentini and the entire surrounding area in the historic centre of Milan, on the corner of Via Mazzini and Via Gonzaga, overlooking Piazza Missori.

As the building was listed by the Historical and Cultural Heritage Office, the project engages with Piacentini’s architectural quality, navigating between philological restoration and contemporary interpretation. The building’s architectural constraint involves two main themes that have guided the design choices – preserving its historical memory and a tendency towards reversibility–, which therefore meant respecting the building’s historical value through a philological restoration of the external façades, and employing an easily recognisable contemporary architectural language concerning the central cavedium and the internal façades that look onto it, in addition to the newly-built volume located on the top floor.

The intervention required a considerable effort in terms of functional compatibility – the mixed-use building effectively connects spaces dedicated to retail on the lower floors, workspaces on the intermediate floors and a dining offer on the top floor, in view of a regeneration capable of triggering a change in the entire urban quadrant. The commercial spaces and the restaurant make the building accessible to urban users, enlivening the entire square and in particular Via Gonzaga.

From a purely architectural perspective, the project envisions the harmonious coexistence of the two distinctive aspects that characterise the new building: the historical one, which concerns the preservation of the outer shell's architectural values, and the contemporary one, which comes to life in the building's interior spaces and in the complete reinterpretation of its higher levels. The work aimed at improving the building's efficiency starts from the redefinition of its internal layout through a systematic set of interventions on the existing service ducts.

The outer shell is restored, with total respect for the original building, including the recovery of a large portion of door and window frames. In line with the principles of Urban Mining, a theme that is being explored in depth by the Park Plus research unit, the original glass panels of the façades are salvaged and repurposed for new life in the artistic field.

The element that strongly characterises the intervention is a prismatic volume positioned on the top floor of the building, whose wings are connected by a bridge that extends to reach the central patio. This new iconic glazed structure gives Palazzo Missori a contemporary look which, combined with its internal redevelopment and a complete energy efficiency improvement, provides the city with a new focal point, playing a leading role in the architectural and cultural changes of the historical centre.