From Arms Factory to City of Culture in Milan by David Chipperfield Architects

This project nears completion in the ex industrial area Ansaldo, Milan, was designed to create the so-called “City of Culture”, a large museums area, which includes the New Archaeological Museum, the Center of Non-European Cultures, the CASVA (Center for Studies in the Visual Arts), the Laboratory of traditional puppet of the brothers Colla.

City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Oskar Da Riz.

David Chipperfield won the international competition in 2000 to design the Città delle Culture (City of Culture) complex in the former Ansaldo factory, located south-west of the city in the creative district surrounding Via Tortona, with a solution that, according to the jury, was: “better addresses the relationship between new and old, without dissonance, seeking their own values in a context not easy.”

The idea of the architect provides for the restructuring of some existing buildings and the construction of a new building that will house the Centre of Cultures Extraeurope, a building with a central hall that welcomes and directs the public as an urban square covered. It contains, in addition exhibition spaces, a number of ancillary services such as bookshops, special shops , ethnic buffets, cafes and a shopping arcade.

The volume with a particular organic form with wavy template and built in etched glass with parabolic surfaces, act as a lantern for the city in the evening. The double-sided translucent glass of the hall contains a system of walkways that bring to exhibition spaces.

The complex comprises an assemblage of two, three and four-storey volumes, framing a network of courtyards and passages designed to help integrate the new structures with the surrounding industrial architecture.

CREDITS.-

Architect.- David Chipperfield Architects.
Project Team.- David Chipperfield Giuseppe Zampieri, Cristiano Billia, Oliver Ulmer.
Team. Consultant.- Alberto Izzo & Partners. Models.- A-Models, Metthew Marchbank, Vista Models. Lighting.- Ove Arup & Partners, designer Mario Nanni.
Management.- City of Milan, the Central Technical Department. Steel Structures and Facades.- Stahlbau Pichler. Project Manager.- Diego Pulici. Design Manager.- Massimo Colombari. Electrical System.- Gemmo and special systems; Mechanical Systems.- Cooperative Cefla. Installation.- Manens. Intertecnica, Ove Arup & Partners. Structure.- Sajni & Zambetti.
Construction.- Ansaldo 2011 consists of Cooperative Costruzioni Lavoranti and Muratori, Società Cooperativa Muratori.

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Lantern or Main building. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Oskar Da Riz.

Double skin. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Oskar Da Riz.

Exhibition room. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Oskar Da Riz.

Access from groun floor plan. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Oskar Da Riz.

Façade. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Oskar Da Riz.

Courtyard. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Oskar Da Riz.

Landscape of roofs. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Oskar Da Riz.

Model urban context. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects.

Model. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects.

Sketchs. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects.

First and second floor plan. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects.

Roof level plan. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects.

Sections. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects.

Section. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects.

Model section. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects.

Detail section model. City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects.

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More information

David Chipperfield

David Chipperfield was born in London in 1953 and studied architecture at the Kingston School of Art and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London before working at the practices of Douglas Stephen, Richard Rogers and Norman Foster.

In 1985 he founded David Chipperfield Architects, which today has over 300 staff at its offices in London, Berlin, Milan and Shanghai.

David Chipperfield has taught and held conferences in Europe and the United States and has received honorary degrees from the universities of Kingston and Kent.

He is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and an honorary fellow of both the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA). In 2009 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and in 2010 he received a knighthood for services to architecture in the UK and Germany. In 2011 he received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture and in 2013 the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association, while in 2021 he was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in recognition of a lifetime’s work.

In 2012 he curated the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.