In the chat the name of the life senator (not investigated) appears to which the Municipality has entrusted some projects without a race the continuous donation of ideas to the city has often not been accompanied by the transparency that Milan needed
In the cards of the urban investigation that shakes Milan, high -sounding names of Italian architecture appear: among the projects contested by the prosecutors there is also that of via Monte di Pietà, in the heart of Brera, linked to Coima and signed by Renzo Piano.
The chats in the acts tell a climate of divergent pressure and interpretations within the municipal offices. «We have given all the technical and administrative support to proceed. They tell me that Collar And Viaroli share while Brings remains on the opposite interpretation », Manfredi Catella writes to the commissioner Giancarlo Tancredi In November 2022. The answer is crawled: “Okay, let’s see.”
A few days later, Catella insists: «Brings (municipal manager editor’s note) Today the project of Floor making it in fact not impossible. This means erase two years of work. We can plan a meeting with the representatives of Floor, Bardelli And Cerri To define clear rules? ». Tancredi Replica: “The problem, very serious, is Aspromonte”. A reference to the judicial case open on Piazza Aspromonte, where the Prosecutor had already contested a violation of the building regulations on historical courtyards. The public ministries note that also in via Monte di Pietà the hypothesis was newly built in a courtyard, between the tall of binding property, prohibited by the urban discipline.
Floorshould be specified, is not investigated, but his name returns to be cumbersome in the files. After all, the senator for life appointed by Giorgio Napolitano More than ten years ago, it has now become a sort of untouchable, capable of winning, or avoiding competitions for any type of project. It happened in Genoa with the Morandi bridge, it also happened in Milan.
The judicial affair involving Catella On via Monte di Pietà it is intertwined with another story, to date less sensational but also more relevant: the structural relationship between the Genoese architect and the Polytechnic of Milan. To understand it you have to take a small step back. Thirty years ago, in 1997, the University banned a great international competition to redesign the area of Gasometers of Bovisa, to settle its new location. They won ex aequo The Japanese study Ishimoto and an Italian-French grouping led by Serete with Architecture-Studio and the Studio Brusa Pasquè. An exhibition followed, a book, but no realization. That was the last time the Polytechnic chose to rely on the open competition to imagine its future. Since then, the most important projects have followed another way.
It is 2017 when Renzo Piano “It gives an idea” for the reorganization of the Bonardi campus, in Città Studi. The project is developed by Ottavio di Blasiformer collaborator of the senator for life, without any competition. The intervention, inaugurated in 2021 by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella It bears the signature of the master, but was born from a trustee, non -competitive decision. The current operation on the so -called Goccia to Bovisa is even more significant: 325 thousand square meters, largely part of the municipal property, intended to host the new North Campus of the Polytechnic. The Masterplan and the design are entrusted to the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. There was no race: the design was “donated” by the Ion Foundation, an expression of the Ion Group International Fintech group, which financed the archistar’s work then delivered to the Polytechnic and the Municipality. A contract in favor of third party who made it possible to circumvent the competition and bring directly Floor as a designer.
At the moment the public funding allocated for the construction of the new North Campus – Bovisa drop of the Polytechnic of Milan correspond to 140 million euros, between ministries and the Lombardy region.
The paradox is evident if you look at Bocconi. The private university, in the last twenty years, has chosen its architects with international competitions: the Grafton Architects for the headquarters in via Roentgen, Sanaa for the new urban campus inaugurated in 2019. While the public relies on binding donations that subtract space from the competition, the private individual defends the transparency of the competitions as a tool of cultural legitimacy. The anomaly is accentuated if we consider that the Bovisa-Goccia is municipal soil, granted to the Polytechnic for a project which, despite being presented as a gift, brings precise interests with it. The Ion Foundation itself is among the founding members of the Tech Europe Foundation, together with Bocconi, Polytechnic Foundation, FSI and Chamber of Commerce, intended to settle in the new campus. Driving there is Ferruccio remainsformer rector of the Polytechnic, president of the Polimi Foundation and a man of connection between politics, finance and university.
It is in this intertwining that the figure of Renzo Piano It takes on a particular meaning. For ten years for life for life, “for very high artistic merits”, Floor It is a symbol of Italian prestige in the world. Its name guarantees international quality and visibility, but its presence, when it comes due to donations or sponsorships, also seems to act as a shield, as an untouchable guarantee for operations that do not pass through competition. The judicial report of these weeks, with messages that explicitly speak of «Project of Floor»And the interests to make him pass in the municipal offices, shows how much his brand is perceived as a decisive also in political and administrative tables.
There is then a question that concerns Milan and its institutions: is it acceptable that a public university, on public land, renounces the design competition? The sponsorship and donation procedures are legitimate, but minimize transparency precisely where transparency should be maximum. The city needs ideas, comparison, plurality of visions. Today, with an investigation that questioned the boundaries between public interest and private pressures, that model returns to being the subject of discussion. Renzo Piano The most celebrated architect of the country remains, a life senator who embodies excellence. But his presence, without competition, risks transforming himself into the symbol of an anomaly that Milan can no longer afford to ignore.
