Torre Libeskind - CityLife | Studio Libeskind

Area
1920: on the ruins of the ceased war, which ended two years beforehand, Italy felt the urgency of rebuilding its future. In this new contest, eight businessmen supported the new entrepreneurial impetus by organizing the first Fiera Campionaria Italiana (Italian Trade Fair), based in Milan.

Today this entire area, which is now newly vacant and available, is subject to a new birth thanks to the renewal of the CityLife district, a project that architect Daniel Libeskind describes as the “Portal to Europe”.

Thanks to the overall surface of 360,000 m2, CityLife represents one of the biggest urban renewal schemes in Europe, with its balanced mix of public and private services. Three internationally renowned architects have signed this project, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind and Arata Isozaki.

CityLife
The office towers represent the heart of the CityLife Business District.

Libeskind - 28 floors, 175 meters high
Isozaki - 50 floors, 202 meters high
Hadid - 44 floors, 170 meters high

The Shopping Centre extends around the three towers and consists of a commercial gallery with shops and restaurants overlooking the third-largest urban park of Milan.
The wide underground parking lots further emphasize CityLife’s hub station, further ‘boosted’ by the 5 km-long cycling path and the brand new Tre Torri metro line.

Libeskind Tower
The Renaissance cupola is the basic principle behind Tower Libeskind’s concept. As a matter of fact, it is reinterpreted through the concave movement of its elevation and it culminates in the crown, both distinctive elements of the project.

The Tower has 28 floors spread in its 175 meters height, the ground floor hosts a highly representative triple height hall, accessible from level -1, where the Shopping District and the M5 underground station are located, as well as from the upper level of the new urban square.
There is a special VIP access point in the North area, which directly links to the Tower’s elevators. On the lower level, in line with the public space, there is a conference area with three halls, each accommodating 50 seats. The area standing outside the lobby is equipped with an underfloor system so that it can easily become an exhibition space supporting the conference centre or the Tower itself.

Technical specification
The upper part of the Tower is known as the Crown and is characterized by a glass structure whose geometrical lines complete the building, closing the spherical tendency which is crucial to the Tower concept.

From a functional point of view, the crown hides the cooling towers, the good lifts and the BMU (Building Maintenance Unit) system of access and of maintenance of the façade.

The Core is taken up by eight elevators which are divided into two separated blocks, according to the floors they give access to, into stairs and into bathrooms. It ensures the highest flexibility for the spaces, also in the event of a multi-tenancy setup.
The Core has been designed in order to maximize the efficiency of the internal Tower’s nucleus, thus pursuing the aim of obtaining a shape as compact as possible while still ensuring the Tower’s spaces flexibility.
The Core runs through the full height of the building and is organized into two blocks, Block A and Block B, symmetrical as far as the structure concerns but asymmetrical with regards to the location of the escape rooms.

The offices will run from the first to the 28th floor. The 27th floor will house a double-height office and a conference room, both of remarkable impact. The access to the conference room is controlled by a reception area which is dedicated to welcoming and registering guests.
The surface of the office rooms slightly changes from floor to floor in relation to the geometry development of the Tower: this feature adds dynamism to the spaces, although the working areas are organized in the exact same way.

Connections
The new CityLife district is located in the North-Western quadrant of Milan.

The site is easily accessible and well-positioned thanks to the vicinity of the main motorways and airports, as well as the numerous modes of public transport that reach the site (most recently, the new underground line 5 with the newly constructed ‘Tre Torri’ station).

The characterizing element of the project is the utter detachment of the vehicular flow from the cycle-pedestrian flow: the first extends to the basement level, while the second is deployed inside the park as well being connected to the already-existing above-ground paths.