Description
The Torre Branca is the steel lookout tower of Parco Sempione in Milan, next to the Triennale's Palazzo dell'Arte: 108.6 meters of bolted tubes designed by Gio Ponti in 1933. An elevator takes you to the top in under a minute, to see the whole city from above.
Its shape is a truncated hexagonal pyramid, so gently tapered that it looks like a prism: 6 meters per side at the base, 4.45 at a height of a hundred meters. It is made entirely of Dalmine steel tubes, flanged and bolted together, and up close it looks like a gigantic construction set.
The reason to go up is the panoramic terrace at the top, a little over 18 meters wide. From up there you can see Milan's whole skyline and, on clear days, a good part of the Lombard plain, the Alps and the Apennines.
The elevator runs through the middle of the tower and carries five people at a time; a staircase winds around it, reserved for maintenance and emergencies. At the base, a glass structure houses the bar that used to be at the top.
The height is no accident. On October 28, 1932, Mussolini decreed that "the divine cannot be surpassed by the human": no tower could be taller than the Duomo's Madonnina, whose head stands at 109.36 meters. Ponti stopped less than a meter short.
The tower was born for the 5th Triennale under the name Torre Littoria and was put up in just 68 working days. At the top there were a little restaurant with twelve tables and a rotating beacon, and the elevator made the climb in 30 seconds.
It was the elevator that closed it: in 1972 it was declared unsafe, not because of the structure but because of the acceleration of the lift. The Branca distillery saved it, buying it in 1990, restoring it and giving it its name; since 2002 you can go up again.
And Mussolini's rule? Years later Ponti himself broke it with the Pirelli Skyscraper, 127 meters tall. Out of respect, a small copy of the Madonnina was placed on its roof.
Its shape is a truncated hexagonal pyramid, so gently tapered that it looks like a prism: 6 meters per side at the base, 4.45 at a height of a hundred meters. It is made entirely of Dalmine steel tubes, flanged and bolted together, and up close it looks like a gigantic construction set.
The reason to go up is the panoramic terrace at the top, a little over 18 meters wide. From up there you can see Milan's whole skyline and, on clear days, a good part of the Lombard plain, the Alps and the Apennines.
The elevator runs through the middle of the tower and carries five people at a time; a staircase winds around it, reserved for maintenance and emergencies. At the base, a glass structure houses the bar that used to be at the top.
The height is no accident. On October 28, 1932, Mussolini decreed that "the divine cannot be surpassed by the human": no tower could be taller than the Duomo's Madonnina, whose head stands at 109.36 meters. Ponti stopped less than a meter short.
The tower was born for the 5th Triennale under the name Torre Littoria and was put up in just 68 working days. At the top there were a little restaurant with twelve tables and a rotating beacon, and the elevator made the climb in 30 seconds.
It was the elevator that closed it: in 1972 it was declared unsafe, not because of the structure but because of the acceleration of the lift. The Branca distillery saved it, buying it in 1990, restoring it and giving it its name; since 2002 you can go up again.
And Mussolini's rule? Years later Ponti himself broke it with the Pirelli Skyscraper, 127 meters tall. Out of respect, a small copy of the Madonnina was placed on its roof.