Commissioned by Libi, Carate Brianza Saving Bank and a private real estate investment venture, this was Citterio and Dwan’s first attempt to design architecture on an urban scale.
Their brief was to redevelop the site of an old cotton mill occupying a whole 16,000 square meters block in Seregno, a small thriving town on the northern edge of Milan. The complex – half rotunda, half fortress – encloses a system of small interior squares. Its austerely monumental red brick architecture makes deliberate reference to the traditional urban architecture of the Brianza region, and industrial features like the chimney are intended as echoes of the site’s cotton-based industrial past. This time, the insertion of ramps, stairs and street-like internal circulation routes has produced a pedestrian precinct laid out like a small town within the urban grid surrounding the site.
Offices, dwellings and shops totaling almost 30,000 square meters – all different in size and appearance – are laid out around three public spaces.
The first, open to the town, provides access to the complex; the other two, inside the complex, are laid out as a main plaza and gardens (5,000 square meters).



total surface sqm 30000