CityWave in Milan: Bjarke Ingels' wave-shaped building to be completed by 2026

ArchitectBjarke Ingels, founder of the studio Big, is in Milan for Design Week, and stopped by his CityLife construction site, where Aldo Mazzocco, CEO and managing director of Generali Real Estate, as well as chairman of Citylife, confirmed delivery by the end of 2026.

Soon there will bethree shifts on the construction site, where more than workers have been at work for months of 'mountaineers' (as the architect himself calls them, speaking of an 'artificial mountain' to describe the work that is taking shape), determinedly committed to going "from idea to reality, from render to concrete matter," commented Paolo Micucci, CityLife's CEO, "skilfully shaped by Big without competing with the context, but complementing it, to give Citylife a new gate, a new entrance on Via Domodossola".

Bjarke Ingels

L’architetto a Citylife

"The building now speaks for itself: it is completely visible," said Mazzocco, "it is a contemporary architecture that maintains classical, reassuring proportions, without being invasive. From the engineering point of view, and due to the complexity of its construction, it almost represents an extreme limit of feasibility: a project that will be recounted as an example of excellence throughout Europe, both in terms of engineering and project management, also because, despite the difficulties, timelines and costs have remained under control".

A piece of the city going up at a complex time for Milan and beyond: "the project has come to terms with complex historical events: started in 2020, it has gone through the years of pandemic and restart, it has come to terms with the supply chain crisis and rising energy costs, up to the most recent geopolitical tensions.

Realising a complex building in this context required great intelligence in the use of resources. The result,' says the architect, 'is a very Italian combination: rationality and rigour that nevertheless produce a powerful architectural gesture. A fertile contradiction between control and greatness'.