The new Rho-Pero complex

After 70 glorious years of activity, Fiera Milano realized that the original exhibition grounds in Milan’s Sempione district were no longer sufficient to ward off increasingly stronger competition from other exhibition complexes, especially in Germany, which had adopted modern and high-tech facilities over the years. Since most of the pavilions – built at various and subsequent stages – had become obsolete and further expansion into the surrounding urban areas was no longer possible, the global leadership position it had acquired over the years was at risk. Nor could the new Portello pavilions inaugurated at the end of the 1990’s fill this gap.

Added to this, the exhibition district, which had become one of the finest and most sought after areas in Milan, thanks to the Fiera, could not handle the impact of the structure, with its 5 million visitors and more than 20,000 trucks entering and leaving each year.

The first project for the new complex in the former Agip site between Rho and Pero was very frugal and basic; 10/12 buildings located along a central corridor that connected them and the few other structures earmarked for services and staff. Yet this “draft” project was the starting point for a call for tenders to build the new exhibition complex that Fondazione Fiera Milano and Sviluppo Sistema Fiera were later to launch worldwide. The five groups taking part in the tender were to prepare the project by working with some of the world’s leading architects. The tender-winning idea came from Massimiliano Fuksas, who outshone the other competitors mainly because of the dramatic covering of the central axis, dubbed the “sail”.

The central architectural element of his project revolved around this very backbone, while the Roman architect envisaged the rest of the complex as a veritable factory; inviting, with a pleasant design, stylistic details, yet still a factory.

Unlike the situation in Milan’s city complex, the new structure also had to draw people who did not need to go there for purely professional reasons. This led to the idea of creating two overlapping corridors along the sail: the top level for anybody who wanted to wander around the complex during the exhibitions and perhaps use the refreshment areas or showrooms along the axis. The bottom level for exhibitors or visitors to the stands. Vehicular and pedestrian traffic – which in Milan had always been mixed —are completely separate here.