How Milan's Piazzale Loreto will change for the 2026 Olympics

As already happened for EXPO 2015, also on the occasion of the Winter Olympics in Cortina and Milan, which will take place in 2026, Milan will change its face. Huge skyscrapers are already under construction throughout the city, but perhaps the area that will undergo the most radical metamorphosis will be Piazzale Loreto. The City of Milan has in fact launched an international call to redevelop one of the largest, most chaotic and anonymous squares in the city to turn it into a new mirror of the Milan of the future, the green, social & smart city that will become be Italy's gateway to Europe. The project presented a few days ago is the result of a collective work by Metrogramma Milano, Mobility In Chain, Studio Andrea Caputo, LAND, Temporiuso and Squadrati Srl and will radically change the look of the square. 

A three-level system, all three walkable, will connect the road, the metro station and the buildings themselves through a set of staircases that will create a seamless space between the street level and the subsoil, with space entirely protected from the foliage of the trees. The project to redevelop the square will in fact create 10,000 square meters of green public space with 500 trees that will create the atmosphere of an oasis – it is no coincidence that the first nickname given to the project is that of "Agora Verde". Andrea Boschetti of Metrogramma, design team coordinator explained:

The new square, hooked on NoLo and designed in continuity between Corso Buenos Aires, Viale Monza and Via Padova, will also be a 'way of life for Milan' that promotes and enhances public and collective space. To design it we started from the cultural and social history of the neighborhood, from listening to the different realities that live in Via Padova and from a knowledge of the soul of Milan.