The chromatic and functional restoration of the historical Palazzine Orafi on the occasion of their centenary

Recovery as a sustainable choice

The issue that architectural culture is facing today is not mainly what concerns the expansion phase of buildings but rather the management of the existing building heritage and its redevelopment both in terms of recovery and rehabilitation. The choice must be the recovery of the built as a contribution to building sustainability; before using new areas to build new volumes, we must consider the functional recovery of the immense built heritage.

Renovation can be more complex than the construction of new buildings, as different solutions and techniques are required, and it is even more fascinating in the case of properties subject to protection, but sustainable renovation has numerous environmental benefits, especially if linked to the enhancement of historical or artistic characteristics¹.

This is the case of the recovery of the Palazzine Orafi, now the headquarters of the Fiera Milano Foundation, here the work of recovery aimed at the  enhancement of environmental characteristics, not separated from a measured innovation capable of improving the efficiency of the building organization and technological choices.

The Palazzine represent an important historical testimony, a symbol of the ancient Milan Trade Fair.

The conscious choice to enhance them and not to sacrifice them to the prevailing taste of modern technological exhibitions must be understood as an appreciable sustainable choice in favor of environmental, functional and expressive recovery.

Even more, so given that the buildings are currently part of a modern transformation environment such as the Citylife, with which they establish a relationship of comparison that increases, by contrast, their historical - documentary value.

Arch. Fabrizio Bianchetti

¹Taken from Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Towards a thematic strategy on the urban environment, Commission of the European Communities, Bruxelles, 11.02.2004, p. 22