Milan does not have the grandeur of Rome or Venetia architecture, but the city is the finanical heart and undisputed design captial of Itlay. One kilometer from Milan Cathedral, a new architectural wonder is rising. Porta Nuova promises to revive the neglected outskirts of the city.-In Itlay, it's not just fashion, design and food. Not for, I would the first one is our land, and this is the natural resources, like the Middle East have their oil. We have oil in our land. Now we have to take it back and create value and import oil as an example.
Vaule it more than 2 billion dollars, Porta Nuova is 60 percent financed by European investors, with remaining 40 percent funded by Qatar holdings. At 290,000 square meters, the site will encompass office, residential and green spaces.
-Milan is already known as a center for finance and fashion, and this complex speaks to both, but the developer wanted to add a third pillar, if you will. That will be technology to make it edger. It has delivered by having Google set up its Italian headquarters here.
Cutting-edge architecture has helped make Porta Nuova unique. The most spectacular bill is the Bosco Verticale, or Vertical Forest. At 231 meters, this curve tower is Owny Credit Groups' European headquarters. Its 4,000 employees help bring it to live. General Manager, Paolo Fiorentino, feels the building is more than just a skyscraper.
-The feedback is so positive that we replicate this project also in other cities, like Vietnam, **, but we change the overall headquarters' philosophy in the group. We change some processes pushed by this new environment.
But can the Milanese, with the taste for traditional bricks and mortar, approve this metal-and-glass intrusion into their city skyline?
-We have materials to add the skylines, so you turn your head and boost, and now you lift your head up.
To get a local prospective, I mew with a contemporay architect and designer in his new offices, a converted church.
-That's a new way of building. For Milano, it's really unusual. And I guess people are likely to be used to it.
Porta Nuove is on target for completion next year, in time for the Milan Expo 2015.