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Parco della Luce (Park of light) has opened in Milan, with over 10,000 m2 of green space intended to preserve biodiversity while offering recreation and leisure opportunities to the business tenants of Monte Rosa 91 and the local community. Designed by AG&P greenscape, the park was opened by AXA IM Alts on Thursday, May 16, coinciding with the International Day of Light.
A coming together of art, nature, and architecture, this large garden hosts Prima Luce (First light), a permanent and free exhibition of site-specific artworks conceived and curated by Helga Marsala. The collection, which takes its name from a poem by Giorgio Caproni, comprises three large works by Mario Airò (Ottava d’oro, ottava di piombo / Octave of gold, octave of lead, 2023), Stefano Arienti (Filari di pioppi / Rows of poplars, 2023), and Loris Cecchini (The Orbital Promenade, Chorus of Solstices, 2023).
Monte Rosa 91, a property managed by AXA IM Alts for its clients and recently redeveloped by Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), is therefore continuing its role as a social hub and meeting place for the community.
The aim of the redevelopment was to reconnect the city’s green corridors by improving existing parklands and introducing new natural elements to increase biodiversity and create a natural environment for people who work in the building. It involved saving over 93 existing trees and the planting of 42 new ones, 60 large shrubs, and 13,800 small shrubs and perennials.
The Prima Luce art project, which grew out of discussions among the artists, the curators, and the designers from RPBW, occupies the area around an artificial hill between Parco della Luce and the adjacent building. Sculptural and pictorial, the works create a luminous progression from the closed spaces of the ground level floor to the top of the hill.
“We’re thrilled to be able to offer the Milan community a new space for socializing and wellness. Our goal in redeveloping this asset, just twenty years after its creation, was to transform a single-tenant property into an urban campus, a place for meeting, personal growth, and wellbeing. Our work was guided by the challenging ESG objectives, with the park and the siting of a collection of permanent site-specific artworks at Monte Rosa 91 complete responses to the E (environment) and the S (social) of the abbreviation ESG”.
Francesco Rovere, senior development manager of AXA IM Alts
>>> Find out more about the Monte Rosa 91 project, overall winner of THE PLAN Award 2023
Location: Milan, Italy
Real Estate Operator: AXA IM Alts
Architect (Monte Rosa 91): RPBW Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Landscape (Parco della Luce): AG&P greenscape
Photography by BAMS Photo / Enrico Cano, courtesy of AXA IM Alts
