Status Complete Construction started 1956 Roof 106 m (348 ft) Height 106 m | Location Milan, Italy Completed 1958 Floor count 26 Floors 26 | |
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Address Piazza Velasca, 3/5, 20122 Milano, Italy Architects Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Enrico Peressutti, Lodovico Belgiojoso, Gian Luigi Banfi Architectural styles Brutalist architecture, Modern architecture Similar Pirelli Tower, Sforza Castle, Torre Branca, Milan Cathedral, Bosco Verticale | ||
Milano verticale architettura contemporanea ep 01 torre velasca studio bbpr
The Torre Velasca (Velasca Tower, in English) is a skyscraper built in 1950s by the BBPR architectural partnership, in Milan, Italy.
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La torre velasca di milano e bordogna
Architects
BBPR is an acronym from the name of its designers: Gian Luigi Banfi, Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Enrico Peressutti and Ernesto Nathan Rogers. At the time of the construction of the Torre Velasca, Banfi was already dead (in 1945 in an Internment camp in Gusen).
Description
The Velasca Tower is part of the first generation of Italian modern architecture, while still being part of the Milanese context in which it was born, to which also belongs the Milan Cathedral and the Sforza Castle.
The tower, approximately 100 metres tall, has a peculiar and characteristic mushroom-like shape.
It stands out in the city skyline, made of domes, buildings and other towers. Its structure recalls the Lombard tradition, made of medieval fortresses and towers, each having a massive profile. In such fortresses, the lower parts were always narrower, while the higher parts propped up by wooden boards or stone beams.
As a consequence, the shape of this building is the result of a modern interpretation of the typical Italian medieval castle. At the same time, BBPR in this building satisfied the functional needs of space: narrower surfaces on the ground, wider and more spacious ones on the top floors.
The town planning laws, then, imposed specific volumes (depending on the buildings' purpose); in this tower, the latter being the mixed functions of residential and commercial use.
Urban context
The tower is located in the city centre of Milan, Italy, near the Duomo (Milan Cathedral) and the headquarters of the University of Milan, between the streets "corso di Porta Romana" and "via Larga". One of the exits of the Missori metro station is located right in front of it.