Palazzo Mondadori in Segrate near Milan is one of Oscar Niemeyer’s most important projects in Europe and has been the headquarters of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore since 1975. Designed at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, the complex still impresses with its scale, bold construction and unique relationship between architecture and landscape.
Palazzo Mondadori – the road to completion
The impetus for the creation of Palazzo Mondadori came in 1965, when Giorgio Mondadori visited Niemeyer’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Brasília. At that time, the publishing house was growing rapidly, and the number of employees had increased almost tenfold in just over a decade. Impressed, the publisher wanted to build a similar structure near Milan. The architect received the commission from Mondadori in 1968. The initial concepts, inspired by the undulating form of Copan in São Paulo, gave way to a more horizontal composition with a distinctive colonnade. Construction of the Palazzo Mondadori began in 1970 on a 36-hectare plot near Milan airport, on land formally owned by Assicurazioni Generali and leased by Mondadori.
The architecture of Oscar Niemeyer
After five years of construction, the modernist palace was ready. The main element of the entire composition is a glass-covered, five-storey office block suspended 13 metres above the surface of an artificial lake. The structure is based on massive parabolic arches made of raw concrete. Engineer Bruno Contarini was responsible for the construction side of the project, authoring an innovative suspension system developed after the original plans were rejected. The concrete arches were erected using 25-metre-high steel formwork, and the foundations were designed to transfer uneven loads. The curtain wall of the Palazzo Mondadori is made of brown glass on the outside and colourless glass on the inside, with an air gap to limit the heating of the rooms.
Palazzo Mondadori and the work of Oscar Niemeyer
The Milanese building occupies a special place in Niemeyer’s oeuvre as a development of ideas previously tested in Brasília. The architect consistently used concrete as a material with almost sculptural possibilities, giving the structures a fluidity and expressiveness that would be difficult to achieve by other means. In Palazzo Mondadori, monumentality is combined with an impression of lightness, achieved by suspending the main body over the water. Niemeyer himself emphasised the uniqueness of the irregular colonnade, in which each arch has a different geometry. The building is sometimes compared to the headquarters of the French Communist Party in Paris as the culmination of the architect’s European period.
Modernisation of the complex near Milan
After more than 30 years of continuous use, the complex has been expanded and modernised. In 2007, Werner Tscholl’s adjacent project was completed, including new wings and the renovation of the historic Cascina Tregarezzo pavilion. The next stage of changes was carried out in 2023-2024 by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati in collaboration with Italo Rota and Maestro Technologies on behalf of Generali Real Estate. This time, the project involved 20,000 square metres of office space and focused on transforming the publishing house’s working environment. During the work, the original USM modular furniture from the second half of the 20th century was preserved, which, after dismantling and reassembly, was supplemented with wooden elements and modules with space for plants. The new interior layout encourages informal meetings, improves daylight access and spatial continuity, transforming the iconic but somewhat archaic Palazzo Mondadori into a modern office building.
Source: wallpaper.com, atlantearchitetturacontemporanea.cultura.gov.it
Read also:Architecture|Facade|Modernism|Urban planning|History|Palace|Italy
