Description
The Pirelli skyscraper, the "Pirellone," is Gio Ponti's skyscraper next to Stazione Centrale: 127 meters, 31 floors, a slender, beveled silhouette that has become a symbol of Milan. It houses the Regional Council of Lombardy.
Milan had an unwritten rule: no building taller than the Madonnina on the Duomo. In 1960 the Pirellone sailed past it. And to be forgiven it put one on top: a small replica of the gilded statue.
It was designed by Gio Ponti, with a team of architects and engineers, for the offices of the tire company Pirelli, where the factories destroyed by wartime bombs once stood. Work ran from 1956 to 1960.
The real challenge was the wind. The building is tall and slender, and it is not steel like American skyscrapers but reinforced concrete. Keeping it standing was the job of the engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, among the consultants.
Four large pillars, two meters wide at the base and half a meter at the top, rise along the facades and can be seen from outside too. At the time it was the tallest concrete skyscraper in Europe and remained the tallest in Italy until 1995.
Don't miss the four pillars in view on the facades and, for those who manage to go up, the belvedere on the 32nd floor, open only on certain special days, with a view over the whole city.
The project inspired other buildings around the world: the Pan Am Building in New York, it is said, and certainly the Telefunken skyscraper in Berlin, whose architects visited the construction site. Adriano Celentano sang of it as "a thirty-floor tree."
The story also has a painful chapter. On April 18, 2002 a light aircraft crashed into the 26th floor: the pilot and two Region employees died. That floor is now the Place of Memory.
The Pirellone also has a sporting life: its 710 steps are the course of the "run up" races, in which athletes run all the way to the top floor.
Milan had an unwritten rule: no building taller than the Madonnina on the Duomo. In 1960 the Pirellone sailed past it. And to be forgiven it put one on top: a small replica of the gilded statue.
It was designed by Gio Ponti, with a team of architects and engineers, for the offices of the tire company Pirelli, where the factories destroyed by wartime bombs once stood. Work ran from 1956 to 1960.
The real challenge was the wind. The building is tall and slender, and it is not steel like American skyscrapers but reinforced concrete. Keeping it standing was the job of the engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, among the consultants.
Four large pillars, two meters wide at the base and half a meter at the top, rise along the facades and can be seen from outside too. At the time it was the tallest concrete skyscraper in Europe and remained the tallest in Italy until 1995.
Don't miss the four pillars in view on the facades and, for those who manage to go up, the belvedere on the 32nd floor, open only on certain special days, with a view over the whole city.
The project inspired other buildings around the world: the Pan Am Building in New York, it is said, and certainly the Telefunken skyscraper in Berlin, whose architects visited the construction site. Adriano Celentano sang of it as "a thirty-floor tree."
The story also has a painful chapter. On April 18, 2002 a light aircraft crashed into the 26th floor: the pilot and two Region employees died. That floor is now the Place of Memory.
The Pirellone also has a sporting life: its 710 steps are the course of the "run up" races, in which athletes run all the way to the top floor.