area 100 | changing cities

architect: Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas

location: Milan, Italy

year: 20032005

The new trade fair is located on the site of the former AGIP refinery at Rho-Pero, an area of over 2 million sqm that has recently been reclaimed, and close to functional infrastructures of urban and territorial communication that is planned to develop further. The complex was commissioned from Massimiliano Fuksas by the Fondazione Fiera Milano following an international competition by invitation staged provide the city with a lager trade-fair district situated outside the centre. Conceived as one of the largest exhibition venues in Europe, covering an area of around 465,000 sqm, the structure will also be an attractive place for meeting and exchange. It will comprise eight pavilions, two of them on two levels, a building with four towers to be used as a Service Business Centre, 80 conferences rooms, 45 bars, restaurants and storse laid out in an area about 9500 sqm and offices and support services with a total area of 6500 sqm. The gigantic system extends for 1 km and 300 m along a central axis servine a series of symmetrical sheds, characterized by a large undulating roof of steel and glass. At some points the “Vela” exceeds 30 m in height, forming “craters”, “waves”, “dunes” and “hills”, and is supported by metal columns with a diameter of half a meter that split into six branches, permitting enormous overhangs. Light and trasparent, it shelters and trasforms the space that it traverses, definign the continuità of view along a linear espanse already prepared for future growth. The axis embraces the backdrop of the Alps, following a public pedestrian route that runs from east to west at a height of 6.50 m. The structural conception in reticular glass and steel utilized for the 2Vela” is proposed again in the “Logo”, a 36-m-high dome resembling an ocean wave that covers the lare hall and conferente room of the Service centre. A common feature of two incisive architectural signs is the complete absence of standardization of the componente, which are inique in their shape and size , numbered and not interchangeable. The wole project for the new Milan Trade Fair is inspired by the need to impose order on the route between the various sectors, creating a fabric of architecture, nature and life in which the glass-and-steel structures, arranged in a line, reflect and duplicate the trees, water and visitor. At the same time the Trade Fair is conceived a san “open” fragment of the future metropolitan

architect: Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas
designer and art director: Doriana Fuksas
client: Fondazione Fiera Milano
location: Rho-Pero, Milan, Italy
site area: 2.000.000 smq
built area: 1.000.000 sqm
surface area: 2.000.000 sqm
built surface: 1.000.000 sqm
cost: 800.000.000 euro
visitor parking: 20.050 places
end of works: April 2005
budget: 750.000.000 euro
general contractor: Astaldi Spa, Vianini Spa, Pizzarotti Spa
structure civil works: Studio Marzullo Srl
drawings of pavillons: Studio Altieri
curtain walls: Permasteelisa spa
steel structure: Icom Engineering, Ask Romein, Carpentieri d’Italia
covering: Bemo Systems
lighting: Lampada Lavinia - iGuzzini, (design by Doriana & Massimiliano Fuksas)
photos: Paolo Riolzi