Plan type bureaux

The reconstruction of the Milan city centre after the Second World War was based on a town plan providing for continuous street facades. Private developers did however put forward a scheme for a tower, and plans by BBPR were approved by the municipal authorities in 1950. Above a ground floor devoted to shops rose 18 floors of offices, the whole crowned by seven floors of luxury apartments. The residential floors projected beyond the office floors to give the Velasca Tower its mushroom silhouette, easily identifiable on the Milan skyline. The sloping planes of the roof echo the angled struts beneath, softening the contrast between the stacked volumes. The structure finds expression in the facade in the attached columns that run the whole height of the building. The modernity of the tower is paradoxical in its integration of references to mediaeval architecture.