Torre Velasca

Milan has no shortage of towers, but none divides opinion like the Torre Velasca. Designed by the BBPR studio and completed in 1958, this concrete high-rise looms over the Crocetta district with a medieval-inspired crown. Restored in 2021–2025, it remains one of postwar Italy's most debated architectural statements.

Why it matters

The Torre Velasca is the building that forced Milan to argue about what a modern Italian skyline should look like. Conceived during the postwar reconstruction boom and completed in 1958, it broke with the sleek glass boxes of the international style by reaching back to Lombardy's medieval tower houses for its silhouette. Ernesto Nathan Rogers and his BBPR partners wanted a skyscraper that felt rooted in the city's history rather than imported from America. The tower's reception has remained contentious, making it a lasting subject of debate about modern architecture and Milan's historical identity. It was given landmark protection by the heritage authority in 2011, and its 2021–2025 restoration has returned the tower to centre stage just as the surrounding quarter is being rethought around a new public square.

What to notice

The tower comprises three stacked sections: a slender lower shaft raised on pilotis, a middle band and an overhanging crown supported by angled concrete buttresses. Clinker brick and stone cladding, restored to their original pattern, and irregular windows echo the forms of historic defensive towers. Its contrast with the late nineteenth-century streets around it was deliberate; the design exchanged reduced overall volume for public ground-floor space. The 2025 restoration added a public piazza at the base.

Context and history

The tower grew out of the RICE (Ricostruzione Comparti Edilizi) reconstruction programme, which from 1948 redeveloped the block between Via Pantano, Via Velasca and Corso di Porta Romana. BBPR — Gian Luigi Banfi, Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Enrico Peressutti and Ernesto Nathan Rogers — took on the commission in 1950. City rules initially demanded a low courtyard block, and the studio negotiated for years before winning approval to substitute a skyscraper, releasing ground-floor space for public use in exchange. Working with engineer Arturo Danusso of Turin, the architects completed the design in 1955, and the tower was completed in 1958. Rogers defended the building's dialogue with Milan's historic towers, while critics challenged its proportions. That debate became part of Italian architectural history. Banfi had died in Mauthausen in 1945, and the surviving partners watched the tower outgrow controversy to become an unavoidable city symbol. In 2020 Hines, with Prelios SGR, bought the tower from Unipol, and Asti Architetti led the restoration, agreed with the Soprintendenza, that finished in 2025.