Overview
It is the name of the project that replaced the historic Milan Fair, in operation since 1906, a pedestrianised area that is the largest in the city, five residential blocks, three office towers, a series of buildings dedicated to services, culture and entertainment, and a park. The result of a 2004 project signed by three masters of contemporary architecture: Zaha Hadid, Arata Isozaki and Daniel Libeskind. To each of these three towers that soar, gigantic, the Milanese have attached the following nicknames: \'Straight\' for the 220-metre high tower designed by Isozaki, \'Crooked\' for the 170-metre tower proposed by Hadid, and \'Curved\' for the 150-metre Libeskind tower, thought to be inspired by the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci\'s never-realised project for the Duomo and the curved lines of Michelangelo\'s Pietà Rondanini, today at the Sforzesco Castle.
But CityLife is not just these towers. Alongside a series of buildings dedicated to services, culture and entertainment, remarkable, and even photographable, are a series of large blocks of apartments (obviously class A energy certification and with home automation equipment) always designed by Hadid and Libeskind, which rise from the over-165-thousand-square-metre park, guaranteeing the liveability of the complex.
Site-specific works of art are distributed here, including a mural almost one hundred and twenty metres long next to the MiCo conference centre. From the latter, a linear series of large exhibition buildings began to be added to the previous exhibition centre by 1997 on a project by Mario Bellini: they stand where Alfa Romeo had its historic car factories in Portello, and constitute the urban centre of the Fair today, better known as the Milan City Fair.
CityLife, 20145 Milano MI, Italia
