In Milan, Mario Cucinella Realizes a Vertical Outpost for Italian Insurer Unipol

Urbanistically, the tower negotiates the significant 21-foot height difference between the elevated Piazza Gae Aulenti and the streets below it. On the plaza side, the omission of several of the more than 2,700 flat, triangular glazed panels makes for a somewhat awkward entry. Better, and far more dramatic, is the experience entering Torre Unipol from the lower lobby along Via Melchiorre Gioia, a thoroughfare that cuts through Porta Nuova. There, a portion of the envelope delaminates from the tower’s base, curling upward to form a 65-foot-long canopy that hovers over a new plaza. Cucinella likens it to a piece of bark peeling away from a tree trunk, but, in such a cosmopolitan city, it’s difficult not to conjure a mental image of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic upswept dress in Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch. The detachment also reveals a weighty azure-blue reticulated frame, fully visible inside but barely discernible through the glass (except at night), as well as a thinner structural web that together enmesh the building.

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A sculptural canopy announces a lower entrance (1), which leads visitors and staff to Torre Unipol’s atrium via an escalator (2). Photos © Duccio Malagamba, click to enlarge.

Inside, an escalator leads from a modest 35-foot-high lower lobby to a grander upper one. As visitors ascend, in a remarkable transition, the ceiling slowly creeps out of view to reveal a vertiginous, nearly 230-foot-tall atrium, lenticular in plan. Looking up, one can see the many office levels, each marked by a curved white floor plate, and the skylights overhead. Programmatically, the atrium recalls the one in Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo’s Ford Foundation building in Manhattan; in scale, those wondrous spaces of John Portman–designed hotels. But here, the cavity reflects a certain organicism that pervades much of Cucinella’s work—it’s akin to a gargantuan, light-filled rib cage. Adding to the analogy, and even less obvious to visitors: the atrium is in fact a vast air pocket blown into a double-skin facade system, which wraps the rest of the tower. Above the skylights, the facade continues skyward, forming a basin like the cup of a giant pitcher plant, which collects rainwater.

The vertical chasm, facing southwest and occupying about one-third of the tower’s overall volume, not only mesmerizes—it acts as a spatial buffer. “In a skyscraper, the south facade is always a difficult one to plan,” Cucinella explains. “People don’t want to be near the glass, especially in winter, when the sun is low.” The physical separation from the outermost envelope helps to minimize the effects of glare in office areas, but this organization also allows the atrium to double as a solar chimney. In the winter, the unconditioned space amasses and redistributes warm air; in the summer, it exhausts heat at its apex. This strategy reduces energy use in the offices and helped the team secure a LEED Platinum rating, without sacrificing comfort. On two walkthroughs—one in the waning days of summer and most recently during Milan’s foggy winter—the atrium remained pleasant.

Many of the floors feature open-plan layouts with all the fixings expected of a sleek corporate office: modish furniture, bamboo and oak millwork, glass partitions, slatted ceilings, neutral carpeting. Near-panoramic views establish a connection with the surrounding cityscape, and relatively small floor plates foster sociability, as do two staff lounges, which open to the atrium directly without glazing. This complicated (in terms of fire-safety code) but worthwhile move heightens, by way of a gentle rising breeze, the perception of the atrium’s thermodynamic qualities.

Open-plan workspaces are simple. Photo © Duccio Malagamba

Elliptical floor plates create curving views. Photo © Duccio Malagamba

In these elevated communal spaces, exposed links, affixed to the ceiling and floor with giant pins—like a supersize bicycle chain—hold 13 levels in a state of suspension rather than compression. The system, minimizing the need for hefty columns, and devised by engineer Massimo Majowiecki, functions in tandem with two cores placed at the foci of Torre Unipol’s elliptical footprint and the azure-blue frame at its perimeter, transmitting forces down to a floating foundation that spans subterranean train tracks (which needed to remain operational during construction) and to even deeper piles. From curious details to entire systems, Cucinella revels in structural expressionism. (After all, immediately after school, and before starting his own practice in 1992, he worked in the office of Pritzker Prize–winning architect Renzo Piano.)

Although early schemes depicted a more cylindrical silhouette, a 60-degree setback rule required the architects to contort and stretch the diagrid into compliance, producing an elegant asymmetrical rake at the crown. “Not all rules are terrible,” Cucinella says with a laugh, “when you play with them correctly.” Within this space, a winter garden sets the stage for a staff dining area. Overhead, an array of 954 photovoltaic panels shade inhabitants from direct sunlight. Like the atrium below, the room is unconditioned, with the exception of a radiant system in the floor. From this verdant perch, visitors can easily spot Torre Velasca to the south and Pirelli Tower to the north.

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A planted winter garden (5) occupies the raked crown (6). Photos © Duccio Malagamba

When considering the Milanese skyline, one immediately thinks of these two design classics—easily among the most significant architectural contributions to the skyscraper as a type—as well as the high benchmark that they set. But we need not be afraid of the past, Cucinella warns. Torre Unipol represents neither the skyward contextualism of Velasca, nor the slick modernity of il Pirellone. Instead, the even-older lessons it draws upon are from the environment writ large—the flow of energy and thermodynamics, the structural qualities of frames and networks and optimized surfaces. Eschewing literal mimicry, Torre Unipol expresses, architectonically, the forces behind nature itself.