Torre Velasca

A bizarre skyscraper that expands from the 18th floor upward, in a way resembling ancient towers. It was constructed between 1956 and 1960 and is considered one of the most important post-war works. It takes its name from the plaza initiated by Spanish Governor Juan de Velasco in 1651

Torre Velasca is located in the very center of Milan, very close to the University “Statale”, between Corso di Porta Romana and Via Larga. At the main entrance of the building is the Missori station(yellow line M3)

Torre Velasca was designed by the BBPR studio (after the architects: Gian Luigi Banfi, Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Enrico Peressutti, Ernesto Nathan Rogers) at the behest of Rice, with the cooperation of Professor Arturo Danusso, in the center of Milan on a site that had been destroyed by the Anglo-American bombing of 1943. The project began in 1950-1951, but the original idea of an iron tower was rejected due to the high cost of materials; between 1952 and 1955, final revisions were made to the design of the tower, which was built in 1956 and 1957 and the construction was financed by Societa’ Generale Immobiliare.

The original design was based on a steel structure, along the lines of iconic American skyscrapers, but the final choice was for more “traditional” concrete, which better suited the Milan metropolitan context of the time. A preliminary assessment, commissioned from a New York-based firm, showed that the project would not be feasible due to the state of technology in the Italian steel industry.

Because of its unique shape, the building was immediately dubbed “the skyscraper with suspenders” by Milanese. The shape of Torre Velasca is truly remarkable, with the lower floors taking up less space than the upper floors of the building, taking the shape of a mushroom, although the architects wanted it to look like medieval towers integrating perfectly with the buildings in Milan’s historic center.
The first eighteen floors (height 106 meters) are occupied by stores and offices. The rest, up to the twenty-sixth, are occupied by apartments, built over a larger area, with a total of 800 apartments.

La Torre Velasca is one of the locations, in Dino Risi’s film “The Widower, starring Alberto Sordi and Franca Valeri.

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