Studio Libeskind in Italy

The PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Tower designed by Studio Libeskind, completes the business district of the CityLife master plan in Milan. Close to the center of the new grand central park it is one of three iconic commercial high rise buildings and is situated between towers designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and Arata Isozaki & Associates who won the competition in conjunction with Studio Libeskind in 2004. The PwC Tower draws on the sphere for inspiration and slopes inward towards its counterparts and the central park below. PricewaterhouseCoopers will become the single tenant of the Libeskind-designed Tower at CityLife and will house…

The residences designed by Studio Libeskind employ the classical courtyard configuration and naturalistic materials of an historic Milanese neighborhood, while presenting an asymmetrical layering of the façade. The residential buildings are sited on the perimeter of the site to the south and rise towards the park to the north. The facades are clad in a finely textured, light grey tile, developed for the project by the Italian tile company Casalgrande Padana. Undulating outdoor spaces create a rhythmic pattern and are draped with a brise soleils, made with new, highly-sustainable composite wood. Each building is topped off by double-height penthouses, conceived…

The corporate pavilion for Vanke China explores key issues related to the theme of the Expo Milano 2015, “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”. The concept for the Vanke Pavilion incorporates three ideas drawn from Chinese culture related to food: the shi-tang, a traditional Chinese dining hall; the landscape, the fundamental element to life; and the dragon, which is metaphorically related to farming and sustenance. All three of these concepts are incorporated in the Vanke Pavilion’s exhibition, architecture and program. Situated on the southeast edge of the Lake Arena, the 800-square meter pavilion appears to rise from the east, forming…

Facing Gaia is presented in conjunction with the exhibition “Time Space Existence” at the Venice Architectural Biennale.  The tower is located in the Giardini della Marinaressa, a public park adjacent to the entrance of the Giardini of Biennale  Reminiscent of ancient forms while employing advanced materials, the project explores the continuum of time, space and existence through the relationship between the planet and humanity. Standing at 12-meters-tall at the edge of the Adriatic Sea, the gleaming white, monolithic tower is bisected by a floating amorphous void.  The undulating mirror-finished space in between represents the infinite and the finite, the possible…

Situated in the heart of the Milan Expo in the Piazza Italia, four 10 meter-high (33 ft.) shimmering tree-like sculptures anchored the four corners of the central square in Milan, Italy. Conceived as gates each structure’s dynamic form spiral out of the ground and spread into two branches spanning 10 meters over the square. Crafted out of brushed aluminium and fitted with innovative LED technology, the Wings animated the public space with a constant flow of pulsating patterns and imagery related to the theme of the Expo: health, energy, sustainability and technology. London-based media agency Innovision provided the creative content for the display…

The Crown is a spectacular new landmark that follows from the famous Casalgrande Ceramic Cloud, the first work created by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma in Italy. Installed near the Casalgrande Padana production facility on two roundabouts situated on the Pedemontana route linking Casalgrande and Sassuolo, the two installations make up a monumental structure of notable architectural merit and symbolic value, creating a sort of “East Access Door” to the Emilian ceramics district. Libeskind has been involved in a fruitful collaboration with Casalgrande for some time now, which sees the two parties working together in a cycle of formal research and technological…

The Museo del 900, Milan’s Museum of 20th century art, has opened an exhibition of the collection of the famed Milanese collector Claudia Gian Ferrari. Daniel Libeskind, who met Claudia Gian Ferrari in the 1980s through their mutual friend Aldo Rossi, was asked to design the exhibition, which was curated by Danka Giacon. The exhibition was open from 9 November, 2012 to 3 March, 2013.

Daniel Libeskind presents an installation called Beyond the Wall as part of the Interni Hybrid/Metissage Architecture & Design Exhibition being held at the Cortile d’Onore Seicentesco of the Università Statale April 9-14 in Milan, Italy.  Made from Silestone® quartz treated with Consentino’s innovative matte “suede” finish, this spectacular polycentric spiral opens in multiple directions along many different trajectories, propulsively twisting to a dramatic zenith. The exhibition’s other contributors include Sefer Caglar, Michele Cazzani, Mario Cucinella, Michele de Lucchi, Akihisa Hirata, Steven Holl, Simone Micheli, Chritophe Pillet, Luca Scacchetti, Dean Skira and Sergei Tchoban and Sergey Kuznetsov with Marco Bravura.

The Memoria e Luce is a memorial located in Padua, Italy for victims of the 9/11 attacks on New York City.  A twisted steel beam salvaged from the wreckage of the World Trade Center, which was donated by the United States to the Veneto Region and in turn to the City of Padua, was used to realize the design of an open and luminous book. The memorial was created with the support and collaboration of Permasteelisa.

The installation Pinnacle, grew out of Libeskind’s desire to celebrate the history and tradition of ceramic manufacturing in Italy’s Emilia Romagna region. The 8m-high sculpture, which sits in the 17th-century Courtyard of the Priory in the former Children’s Hospital of Bologna, the region’s capital, consists of two imposing facades made of metalized-porcelain ceramic panels. The facades converge to form a pinnacle that serves as a gate to the former hospital complex. The sculpture is a collaboration with the well-known Italian floor and cladding tile manufacturer Casalgrande Padana, while the joint project began at the CityLife construction site, where the Emilia-based…