Main Ecourbanism Glasshouse Restaurant: Between the City and the Park

Glasshouse Restaurant: Between the City and the Park

The new restaurant on the terrace of the- Palazzo dell’Arte has been designed by Paolo Brescia and Tommaso Principi of OBR who have imagined a glasshouse immersed in greenery, suspended above Milan.

Designed by the architects Paolo Brescia and Tommaso Principi of OBR, along with Andrea Casetto and with the collaboration of Maddalena d’Alfonso, the new restaurant on the terrace of the Palazzo dell’Arte is, together with the Arts & Foods Pavilion curated by Germano Celant, one of the most significant of the Milan Triennale’s initiatives for Expo 2015. After restoring the panoramic terrace above the main hall to the form it had in Giovanni Muzio’s original design, the Milan Triennale is offering visitors a new dimension of quality dining, provided by the Michelin-star chef Stefano Cerveni.

The exhibitions put on by the Milan Triennale have always defined a synthesis between design and architectural experimentation; on such occasions the park was turned into a theatrical stage for the new myths of urban living and the building designed by Muzio became a marvelous mechanism of cultural promotion.

OBR, winner of the idea competition held by the Milan Triennale in July 2014, has come up with a design that interprets the tradition of the Triennale in a light, rigorous and dynamic manner. The restaurant has been conceived as a transparent glasshouse immersed in vegetation and suspended above the Parco Sempione, with a spectacular view of the Castello Sforzesco and the entire Milanese skyline. Climbing up to the terrace of the Palazzo dell’Arte, you are greeted by a garden of aromatic herbs laid out by the landscape designer Antonio Perazzi, behind which rises the glazed pavilion of the restaurant (33 x 5 meters), set back from the portals in the historic façade.

Paolo Brescia and Tommaso Principi: “The Triennale has always been a point of reference in the social and cultural life of Milan. The form of the restaurant, a glasshouse suspended between park and city, stems from the idea of turning the terrace of the Palazzo dell’Arte into a center of urban sociability, a sensitive space in a perpetual state of evolution that encourages interaction by means of the dynamic exchanges between inside and outside”

The pavilion, which can be opened up completely all the way around its perimeter, is characterized by a light modular structure of stainless steel that allows easy and rapid assembly and dismantling directly on site, combining industrial technologies with craft skills. The design of the structure echoes the geometry of the spans of Muzio’s historic building. A large mobile curtain of 400 square meters floats above the glass pavilion. Opening completely on one side, it allows the pavilion to function as a bioclimatic, thermoregulating greenhouse that can be used in different ways in the daytime/nighttime and summer/winter and permits guests to dine in the shade at lunchtime or under the stars in the evening.

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