THE NEW Irish-designed faculty building for Bocconi University in Milan, which won the World Building of the Year award last weekend, has become “a symbol of our city and its ability to renew itself”, according to Milan’s mayor, Letizia Moratti.
Speaking at its official opening yesterday in the presence of Italy’s president Giorgio Napolitano, Ms Moratti said Dublin-based Grafton Architects had interpreted Milan’s identity as an industrial city and also a city of culture and captured “its deepest spirit and soul”.
Angelo Provasoli, outgoing rector of the esteemed private university, said the new building brought together for the first time under a single roof all of its teaching staff and researchers.
With some 50 professors in academic robes seated behind him, Prof Provasoli said the opening was “a historical moment full of important implications”.
Bocconi’s president Mario Monti said the fact that it had been designed by Irish architects was an indication of how well Ireland was integrated into Europe – just as the new faculty building itself was “integrated into the surrounding landscape”.
Noting that the new facility had won the World Building of the Year award, beating 220 other shortlisted nominations from more than 40 countries, Mr Monti said it “epitomises our link with the wider world” as well as having “windows open to the city”.