by Giuseppe Tortato / Milan, Italy
In the ex Fluid-o-tech area, 10.000 square meters enclosed in a refined architectural casket host the new center of Milan fashion designed by architect Giuseppe Tortato. A curtain of buildings, all different, but united by architectural language and choice of materials, develops around unpredictable courtyards and patios. The great commercial success that has characterized the recovery of Ex Richard Ginori, where fashion and creatives have found the perfect place to create showrooms and ateliers, quickly saturated the 60.000 square meters of the citadel, creating the need to find new areas of development. With this in mind, just opposite the main entrance of the Richard Ginori, in Morimondo street n. 23, the Duemme sgr real estate fund has given birth to a new estate and planning bet. The challenge was to create spaces that could tell and represent the uniqueness of their users, request that characterizes the world of creative and design in general. As always in projects of Giuseppe Tortato, the design philosophy is to offer attractive and livable spaces, enclosed in elegant architectures. The materials are glass, concrete, steel and wood, but processed in ever different ways. The rest is entrusted to the sunlight, democratically distributed to all, with small and large patios onto which overlook the high windows. Simple concepts that do not exclude the research and experimentation, as happens regularly on the long road of Morimondo. The request by the municipality to maintain the geometry and the skyline of the old factory, have created the need to reinvent the 150 linear meters of the front overlooking the street. The intuition was to develop a building of the early twentieth century in brick that will be totally restored, transforming it into the hub around which develop the two wings of the new intervention. The two wings, separated from the building in brick, are characterized by an antithetical approach to each other relatively to the road: in the first wing is privileged the airy overlooking on Via Morimondo and Richard Ginori, with large white glazed steel portals; in the other wing the language is more intimate. During the day the relationship with the internal courts is more intensive, while at night it transforms into a lantern, a landmark that characterizes the way. The latter front, in particular, has a design history linked to the characteristics of the original front, feutured by high walls and prefabricated reinforced concrete that the City required to retain in their appearance but also in their mediocrity. "With this background there was a serious risk of compromising the architectural outcome of the entire project, and then we decided to create something special," says Giuseppe Tortato. The high walls remained, but after the "cure" they appear as a sort of concrete barcode with variable tones of gray, characterized by the inclusion of filled glass cubes of different sizes, designed in cooperation with Seves company, a leader in the production of concrete and glass, which has collaborated with most important international architects in the development of special tailormade pieces.
Project partners:
» Fusaro Mario S.r.l.
» Uniform S.p.a.
