The redevelopment of the building complex owned by Allianz Italia in Milan originally designed by Gio Ponti in the late 1950s is starting.
Allianz Real Estate entrusts the redevelopment to Skidmore Owings & Merrill architects to adapt it to the new concepts of the workspace and to meet sustainability requirements.
An exhibition presented the future of Corso Italia 23, however, someone disapprove the redesign of the facades for having distorted the Master’s original project.
The debate is open and the institutions are asked to be more sensitive to the architectural heritage of the 1900s.

Corso Italia 23 was born as the headquarter of the historical insurance company RAS (combined with Allianz in 2006).
In 2018 the Milanese headquarters of Allianz moved into the new iconic Allianz Tower in CityLife designed by Arata Isozaki and Andrea Maffei.
The redevelopment of the historic Milanese headquarters, which is being managed by Allianz Real Estate, confirms the commitment of the property’s owner to the city of Milan.

Following an international design competition, Allianz Real Estate selected Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) to redesign Corso Italia 23, Allianz SpA’s historic headquarters located in Milan. 

Originally designed by architects Gio Ponti, Piero Portaluppi and Antonio Fornaroli in the late 1950s, the project transforms the historic about 50,000 sqm Corso Italia complex, in the heart of Milan city centre.
It aspires to create a new office destination employing the most advanced sustainability, flexibility, workplace, wellbeing and smart building concepts, while maintaining dialogue with Ponti original design. 

Allianz Real Estate and SOM share the belief that sustainability is not only about resource efficiency and operational costs but also encompasses proactive design solutions that support users’ health and wellbeing. The project embraces all facets of sustainability: environment, resource management and people. In line with the targets and aspirations of the LEED Gold Standard, the integrated proposal considers climate and region-specific passive and active strategies to enhance building performance and to establish an environmentally-sound precedent. The project also aspires to meet the WELL Gold Building Standard, which harnesses the built environment as a vehicle to support the health and wellbeing of its users. 

The SOM’s project.

With a focus on people, the project’s inside-out approach addresses the needs of users by providing flexible and adaptable office space supported by a robust programme of amenities that meet the demands of contemporary users. 

The new courtyard forms the heart of the campus with an appealing garden that celebrates interaction between the buildings community. The dynamic landscape design enables connectivity between the various parts of the campus, with greater visual permeability between inside and outside spaces.

Key interventions to bring the campus in line with contemporary workspaces include the addition of new lobbies, suitable for various occupant profiles.
By employing a unified set of materials, detailing and finishing, a ‘continuous landscape’ is formed at ground level, stitching the new elements of the campus together, including simple elevation changes that navigate the office community to the Fitness Centre, Business Centre, Retail, and Food Hall.
The spiral staircases visually connect the office spaces with the landscape and further collaborative and amenity spaces encourage informal gathering, promote physical activity and wellbeing throughout the work environment. 

In order to achieve flexible planning workspace scenarios and to optimise the office area, the core spaces containing stairs and wardrooms are consolidated to provide a larger amount of flexible area to facilitate a variety of workspace strategies that will successfully support employee innovation, collaboration and focused work. 

The office floors benefit from central hub spaces that create a vertical connection through the building, and offer a variety of common space for use by tenants.
Meeting spaces, phone rooms and lounge areas provide the background for collaboration and the serendipitous interactions. 

The facades of each building has been redesigned to improve environmental performance and to create a new identity for the campus, taking into consideration its relationship with the city.
Although the original scheme of the building designed by Gio Ponti has been respected, the new shell that covers the building and the addition of rooftop gardens and terraces that modifies the architecture and changes its proportions.

We hope it is possible to enrich the city of Milan, which is experiencing a vibrant growth, respecting the legacy that the great Maestro Gio Ponti has left us.