The square, served by the M5 line, however, takes its name from the three tall buildings of the business district that overlook it, and which, as in a Sergio Leone film, are amicably called "the crooked", "the straight" and "the curved ”, nicknames that suggest the design and the particular shapes adopted to redefine the Milanese skyline.
It is, respectively, the Generali tower designed by Zaha Hadid (or Torre Hadid), 177 m high, directly connected to the shopping center and among the first “in torsion” to have a concrete structure; of the Allianz tower designed by Arata Isozaki and Andrea Maffei Architects (or Torre Isozaki), 209 m high, completed by four support brackets anchored to the base (initially not foreseen) and crowned, as per tradition, by a reproduction of the Madonnina as highest roof of the Milanese city (it is, in fact, the second tallest building in Milan and Italy, after the Unicredit tower, but the latter reaches 231 m in height only thanks to its summit spire); and the Pwc tower by Daniel Libeskind (or Libeskind Tower), 175 m high and folded in on itself, so as to give those who live on the higher floors a feeling of suspension in the void.
Finally, the CityLife redevelopment project will be closed by City Wave, the double wave building with a covered central square, designed by BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), which will act as the entrance portal to the district. The signature of the Danish studio is perfectly legible in the design of this horizontal complex, in fact there is no lack of scrupulous attention paid to the issues of sustainability, energy efficiency and green spaces; construction is expected to finish in 2025.
The park and the vegetable gardens
Furthermore, around CityLife there is a large green lung of 170 thousand square meters, crossed by paths and inhabited by about 2000 botanical species from the Lombard territory. Strolling through the cycle and pedestrian paths of the park, more or less at Piazzale Arduino, you come across the Orti Fioriti: vegetable gardens divided into zones, including that of infinity-mind, herbs, perfumes (dedicated to aromatic plants), pumpkins, dwarf fruit trees, all horticultural areas through which it is possible to roam freely discovering colors, varieties, uses and properties of the various plants and tree essences.
In addition to the opportunity to relax in the well-kept urban green, CityLife also offers the public sports facilities, where they can play tennis and padel, the Babylife kindergarten, signed 02 Arch and designed entirely in wood, and an artistic walk, consisting of 20 installations of 'contemporary art.
Among the most famous works of Artline, the open-air public art project, we mention Vedovelle and Draghi Verdi by Serena Vestrucci, a reinterpretation of the public fountains of Milan in which the brass-shaped dragon-shaped nozzles take the form of elephants, giraffes, rabbits etc .; Coloris by Pascale Marthine Tayou, whose tall metal poles in pastel shades, surmounted by funny eggs, stand out from a concrete base depicting the planisphere; and Judith Hopf's Hand and Foot for Milan, a large hand and a large foot made of shaped bricks.
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