Description

In Milan, in the abandoned area of the Portello factory, near the site where, in the future, Bellini will realise the addition to the fairgrounds, Bayer has promotes a competition at invitation for the realisation of its headquarters.

The competition is completed but Bayer will never begin the works, leaving the area to be transformed for other purposes. The functional programme of the competition was very complicated and had to respond to a set of functional provisions: it had to be realised in phases, to be extremely flexible with regards to uses, to be able to host multiple companies of the same group that would need to works together but also autonomously.

The project proposal was for this reason very simple: great complexity in the programme, great simplicity and clarity in the typological and architectural structure.  Four corner towers define an independent structure featuring two rectangular courtyards; the towers in stone contrast with the structures in glass; the towers experiment with motifs which will later be realised for the Tokyo Design Center.

(Ermanno Ranzani)