Palazzo Niemeyer, a masterpiece by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012) and the headquarters of the Mondadori Group since 1975, has undergone a major renovation, including interior refurbishment and redevelopment.

Two key concepts guided the design of the project: identity and coherence. The goal was to enhance the building, in Segrate, on the outskirts of Milan, while respecting the distinctive character of Niemeyer’s work, reinterpreting it in a contemporary way through innovative, functional and sustainable solutions that strengthen the collaborative nature of the open space areas that were part of the original project.

“The redevelopment of Palazzo Niemeyer has been an important opportunity to give new life to, and celebrate fifty years after its inauguration, a place that is an integral part of our identity and our history, as well as an example of architecture of international relevance,” said Antonio Porro, CEO of the Mondadori Group. “This significant intervention has allowed us to make our headquarters even more efficient, sustainable and inclusive. It is a new working environment that reflects the values we embrace every day: openness, innovation and care for people,” Porro concluded.

The works, which covered a total area of more than 20,000 square meters, were carried out by Generali Real Estate – owner of the building through the Mascagni fund managed by Generali Real Estate SGR – together with the Mondadori Group.

“Palazzo Niemeyer is one of the most well-known and iconic buildings in Generali’s real estate portfolio. We are proud to have completed a high-quality project that has renewed the contemporary value of the building, bringing it in line with a more modern and flexible approach to workplaces and with new technological and energy solutions, while preserving its unique historical and architectural identity. I would like to thank our team, who brought expertise and passion to this important project,” said Benedetto Giustiniani, Head of Southern Europe Region at Generali Real Estate.

This major redevelopment project was designed by the international architecture firm CRA Carlo Ratti Associati, under the creative direction of Carlo Ratti, founding partner and curator of the 2025 Architecture Biennale, in collaboration with Italo Rota (1953–2024), one of the most influential interpreters of Italian architecture.

Their vision led to a radical reinterpretation of the office layout, addressing the needs that have emerged in recent years for coexistence between in-person work and flexibility.

The spaces have been completely redesigned with new open space workstations that further encourage creativity and collaboration among colleagues, alongside shared areas, concentration zones and social spaces. The result is an open, fluid environment filled with greenery and in constant dialogue with the surrounding landscape.

«​“To step outside the comfort zone of Zoom calls, we must redesign the office as a space that is worth the trip,” said Carlo Ratti, founding partner of CRA Carlo Ratti Associati. “Starting from Oscar Niemeyer’s iconic design and the USM furniture he selected, we dismantled and reassembled each piece in new configurations, integrating wood, recycled materials, nature and an exclusive selection of Italian design objects. The result? A catalog of environments, from open to more intimate, where everyone can find their comfort zone and where collaboration and innovation can truly flourish.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Launched in January 2023, the Palazzo Niemeyer redevelopment project is the result of collaboration between the Real Estate teams of the Mondadori Group, led by architect Chiara Capuzzi, Generali Real Estate, and the international studio CRA Carlo Ratti Associati.

The focus areas of the intervention were:

• The redesign of the interior layout across all five levels of the building, featuring flexible and multifunctional areas, open space workstations alternating with individual work zones, meeting rooms and phone booths equipped with the latest technologies, agoras, lounge areas, break spaces and service areas.
• Restoration and enhancement of the building’s original furniture, with the regeneration of more than 1,300 modules from Swiss manufacturer USM Haller, dismantled and reassembled, integrating wood and creating new types of furnishings.
• Special attention to natural light, acoustic comfort and visual continuity with the original park designed by landscape architect Pietro Porcinai, through solutions that help reduce environmental impact.
• The project also included upgrading and improving the energy efficiency of the systems according to energy-optimization criteria, eliminating the use of fossil fuels and making the building “Net Zero” in terms of CO2 emissions, with the goal of achieving LEED and WELL certifications.

Additional spaces have also been redeveloped in architectural continuity with the main building and Niemeyer’s original project, including the piazza facing Palazzo Niemeyer and the Centro Servizi, a circular structure overlooking the lake and park, which houses a café and a company restaurant. The restaurant has been made independently accessible, allowing more convenient and flexible use of the more than 5,000 square meters of multifunctional space.

Beyond Palazzo Niemeyer: redevelopment of the entire iconic campus

The drivers behind the redevelopment of Palazzo Niemeyer – employee wellbeing, environmental sustainability and energy efficiency – also guide the additional interventions planned across the rest of the iconic corporate campus. The aim of the redevelopment project initiated by Generali Real Estate is to further enhance the uniqueness of this green space on the edge of Milan, transforming it into a contemporary and sustainable workplace.

Between late 2025 and early 2026, work will focus primarily on Cascina Tregarezzo, a traditional Lombard rural farmhouse that has been expanded and redeveloped in a contemporary key. The integration of the historic building with glass structures and a steel portico has created a unique space where the charm of tradition is elevated by modern architecture. The current works, scheduled for completion in early 2026, aim at energy efficiency and decarbonization according to the highest standards (LEED certification is underway), as well as improving occupant wellbeing. The interior spaces, comprising about 4,000 square meters of offices over two floors, will also be made more flexible and accessible.

By illuminating Palazzo Mondadori in the colours of the Italian national flag, the Tricolore, we want to demonstrate a sentiment of solidarity and hope for the whole world and symbolically support our country in this extended period of emergency and social isolation.
The colours of our flag represent a metaphorical embrace from each of us from #NoiDellaMondadori to all those in difficulty and an expression of gratitude to the people who at this time are working on the front line with a sense of duty and self-sacrifice to protect and care for our general wellbeing.
It is our hope that the red, white and green colours that illuminate the headquarters of the Group, the building designed by Oscar Niemeyer, can help to stimulate renewed hope that, together, we can overcome this great challenge.

The Mondadori Group has chosen the summer solstice to inaugurate the permanent artistic restoration of the illumination of Palazzo Mondadori, the building designed by Oscar Niemeyer.

An important renovation project on an iconic example of contemporary architecture, at both the national and international level, with which the Mondadori Group wants to celebrate 100 years of history.

“In recent years, the Mondadori Group has changed, embarking on a new solidity with new prospects, by focusing on the “fundamentals”, the activities related to the publishing of books and magazines, in both traditional and digital forms. And I like to seen an analogy in this capacity to innovate, without forgetting our roots, with the building that Niemeyer designed for Mondadori,” underlined Ernesto Mauri, chief executive of the Mondadori Group, “and that everyday surprises us by its visionary modernity, comprised of solid and traditional architectural elements that are in harmony with extraordinarily creative forms; an architecture that is new each time we look at it, but is, at the same time, history, and, with this new feature, increasingly the future.”

THE NEW PERMANENT ILLUMINATION

The building, which is owned by Gruppo Generali and has been the headquarters of the Mondadori Group since 1975, was built according to three fundamental Vitruvian principles as a way of providing large working spaces for a business that is a symbol of Italian excellence, Mondadori (utilitas or utility): a building constructed on water and on the earth, with strong and solid pillars (firmitas or durability) with a suspended body for the work areas; and, above all, a building with the capacity to express a beauty that aspires to the sublime (venustas or beauty and delight).

Thanks to the permanent illumination designed by the master of light Mario Nanni, the Palazzo Mondadori will be seen in a new light, an intense narrative able to express the life of the building and the structure of its arches.

Mario Nanni has designed a total work that brings together light, cinema, music and publishing; a work dedicated to the daytime and the night-time, for a day-to-day homage to life, thought and beauty. A work for both those who work in the building and those who will see it only from a distance: a work for everyone.

THE BOOK IL PALAZZO MONDADORI

Mondadori’s 110^th anniversary and the realisation of the permanent artistic restoration of the illumination of Palazzo Mondadori, also offer the perfect occasion to present – with the words of Professor Francesco Dal Co, editor of CASABELLA – a new edition of the book Oscar Niemeyer. Il Palazzo Mondadori, by Roberto Dulio (Electa).

The book, which has been completely re-designed since the first 2007 edition, published to mark Mondadori’s 100^th anniversary, retraces the story of the conception and construction of the company’s headquarters between 1968 and 1975: a precise and accurate study that aims to reconstruct the commissioning of the building to the Brazilian architect who went on to place it within a broader cultural context.

«The Palazzo Mondadori is the son of Itamaraty, the Foreign Ministry building completed by Niemeyer in Brasilia in 1964, and much admired by Giorgio Mondadori. The light of the arches of Itamaraty is the same; whereas in the Palazzo Mondadori it varies: a monument in one, a “symphony” in the other, commented Professor Francesco Dal Co, editor of Casabella. Moreover, in the Palazzo Mondadori the floors hang to the cover and float on empty space. But if Niemeyer completed in Milan an exploit that he had only touched upon in Brasilia, this is also due to the companies that produced the special materials used in its construction and the Italian engineers that calculated the static.»

Oscar Niemeyer. Il Palazzo Mondadori includes documents, original and unseen sketches by Niemeyer, plans, photographs of the site and the completed building, as well as a photographic campaign by Gabriele Basilico and a more recent one by Roland Halbe, made after the restoration of the building, that make it possible to retrace the various steps that led to the realisation of the building in a philological, visually enthralling and engaging manner, not only for fans of contemporary architecture, but also for normal readers.

THE INAUGURATION

The new lighting project for Palazzo Mondadori will be presented this evening after sunset with “Sospeso, leggero ma non troppo”, a poem of light dedicated to all those, staff and collaborators,  who work everyday inside this iconic construction.

A story in light and music that will transform Palazzo Mondadori into a canvas on which the illumination will depict the passage of time and offering a new interpretation of its architecture in the night-time. To ensure that real architecture enthusiasts – and others, too – won’t miss the show, the event will be broadcast live this evening on the Mondadori Group’s Facebook page.

«Faced with a monumental building, made of imposing material and with an historical existence, necessarily requires study, respect and listening to the place. A syncretic intervention of high symbolic value which, comprising architecture and landscape, solar phases and chronobiology, brings you up against the infinite rules of natural light through a background that generates light and shadow, that celebrates the beauty of the complex, even after sunset, and making it eternal,» said Mario Nanni.

The twenty-three pillars of the facade will be matched by as many minutes, plus one, the twenty-fourth vertical element that completes the rhythmic composition of the building. The meridian light will caress the building like the page of a book, in a composition that brings together different and complementary knowledge, reaching out beyond time, paying homage to the beauty of the Palazzo Mondadori.

The dialogue between architecture, light, water and fire will last for a total of thirty minutes: twenty-four minutes of poetry, followed by a pause of six minutes, during which the light will stay on to enhance the architecture as a whole, in the magic of the night.

«The choice of the summer solstice to inaugurate my work of light is because it is a special night,” – explains Mario Nanni – “indeed, it is the shortest night of the year, in which we enter the sign of Cancer, whose constellation, during the presentation of the project, will become a great fire that will illuminate the night, with a unique and unrepeatable image of the building,» Nanni concludes.