Skip to content

Zaha Hadid Architects

Your Starred Items

Studio

Archive Search
Studio
Your Starred Items
Searching. Please Wait...

  • Filters

  • Filters

  • Filters

  • Filters

  • Awards
  • People
  • Publications
  • Videos
  • Careers

News

Milan named world’s Best City by Wallpaper Magazine

Experiencing an exciting renaissance over recent years with enlightened patrons of the city’s art, fashion and architecture, Milan has received the Wallpaper* Design Award for Best City, listing the new Generali Tower’s contribution to an evolving cityscape that combines Milan’s traditional grandeur with a contemporary architectural language.

Generali Tower is within CityLife, the largest new civic space and public park in Milan since Parco Sempione opened 130 years ago. The tower houses up to 3,900 employees to meet Generali’s continued growth as one of the world’s largest financial institutions.

Aligned at ground level with three of the city’s primary axes that converge within CityLife, the 170m Generali Tower connects with its surrounding public piazzas and park; the curvilinear geometries of its podium defined by the perceived centripetal forces generated from the staggered intersection of these three city axes.

This vortex of centripetal forces at ground level is transferred vertically through the tower by realigning successive rhomboid-shaped floor plates to twist the tower about its vertical axis. This helical twist reduces incrementally with the height of each floor above street level, giving all floors a fractionally different relationship to the floors above and below.

As the tower rises offering broader views across Milan, the twist orientates the tower's higher floors to the primary southeast axis leading to Bramante’s 15th Century tribune of Santa Maria della Grazie.

Wallpaper* 

Photograph by Jacopo Spilimbergo