Porta Nuova – the Bosco Verticale, Gae Aulenti and Milan's new skyline

The Porta Nuova project, begun in 2005, turned the land between Garibaldi station and the Isola quarter into Milan's new skyline: César Pelli's spire, two towers planted with 800 trees and a park laid out as a library of trees. A walk through the district.

For most of its history Milan grew low and dense around the Duomo. Porta Nuova changed that. The regeneration project begun here in 2005 filled the land between Porta Garibaldi station, the old Varesine area and the Isola quarter with towers, squares and a park, about two and a half kilometres north of Piazza del Duomo, and gave the city a skyline that is now as recognisable as its cathedral spires.

It is best seen on foot, in a loop of an hour or two that can end with dinner at one of the district's starred restaurants.

Piazza Gae Aulenti and the UniCredit Tower

The district's centre is Piazza Gae Aulenti, a raised circular square 100 metres across, designed by César Pelli's practice and inaugurated on 8 December 2012. It is named after the Milanese architect and designer, who had died less than two months earlier. Above it rises Pelli's UniCredit Tower, the headquarters of Italy's largest bank, whose spire was fitted on 15 October 2011; with it, the tower is the tallest building in Italy, although the Allianz Tower at CityLife is taller to the roof.

The Bosco Verticale

A short walk north, on Via Gaetano de Castillia at the edge of Isola, stand the two residential towers of the Bosco Verticale, the Vertical Forest, by Boeri Studio – Stefano Boeri, Gianandrea Barreca and Giovanni La Varra. Torre E rises 116 metres and Torre D 84, and between them they carry some 800 trees, 5,000 shrubs and 1,500 perennials of more than ninety species, planted on balconies that step in and out around the façades.

Boeri conceived the idea in 2007 and has cited Italo Calvino's novel The Baron in the Trees, whose hero leaves the ground to live in the branches. The towers were inaugurated in 2014, won the International Highrise Award that year and were named the best tall building worldwide by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in 2015. They are private apartments, so admire them from the street and from the park below.

The Biblioteca degli Alberi

Between the towers and Piazza Gae Aulenti lies BAM, the Biblioteca degli Alberi or library of trees, inaugurated on 27 October 2018. The Dutch studio Inside Outside, founded by Petra Blaisse, won the design competition in 2004 and worked with the garden designer Piet Oudolf. The park covers 95,000 square metres, with more than 500 trees in 22 circular groves, over a hundred plant species and some 135,000 plants in all, crossed by straight paths that link the surrounding streets.

The Fondazione Riccardo Catella looks after the park and runs a programme of free events – concerts, markets, sport and workshops for children. It is open around the clock, and in summer, from May to September, its fountain plays.

Corso Como and Isola

South-west of the square, the pedestrian Corso Como runs down to Porta Garibaldi. At number 10, Carla Sozzani's 10 Corso Como began in 1990 as a gallery and bookshop, added a design and fashion store in 1991 and a café in 1998, and remains one of the city's most influential addresses for fashion, design and books. North of the towers, Isola – the island, so called because the railway once cut it off from the centre – keeps its older courtyard houses and neighbourhood bars.

The older towers

Porta Nuova's newer buildings have famous neighbours. Gio Ponti's Pirelli Tower, designed with Pier Luigi Nervi and Arturo Danusso and completed in 1958, stands 127 metres high beside Milano Centrale; it was the tallest building in Italy after Turin's Mole Antonelliana until 1995. Palazzo Lombardia, the regional government's headquarters by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, was inaugurated in January 2010 and was briefly the tallest building in the country.

Where to eat and stay

Three MICHELIN-starred restaurants sit around the towers: Andrea Berton's restaurant on Via Mike Bongiorno, IYO Kaiseki at the foot of a tower on Piazza Alvar Aalto, and Enrico Bartolini's Anima in the Milano Verticale | UNA Esperienze hotel. Palazzo Parigi, on Corso di Porta Nuova, is the grand hotel closest to the district.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.