Abstract
This chapter is the first dedicated to the Milan Expo 2015, which is the main case study of this book according to its relations with both the turning point of the crisis and the scale of a post-metropolitan space (such as the one of the Milan urban region ). Specifically, this chapter focuses on the spatial features of the 2015 World’s Fair, by considering them as a significant component of the Milan urban change process, mainly due to the recent service and new manufacturing metamorphosis of the city. After a first general, but critical description of the current urban transformation and regeneration process, it retraces the steps through which the Expo site projects developed, from the event candidature to its celebration . Afterword, it focuses on the final Expo site project and the ongoing post-event reconfiguration: from the first proposal based on the real estate exploitation of the area to the last one regarding the reuse of the event material legacies toward the strengthening of Milan as a node of the world knowledge economy network.
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Notes
- 1.
In 2009, an online survey was launched to understand local citizens’ expectations in regard to the exposition and a two-day open discussion was held in a theatre.
- 2.
It was assumed that a huge plant hosting the Poste Italiane services inside the original perimeter would be moved, but this did not happen.
- 3.
Despite the low level of intercontinental accessibility.
- 4.
The low reputation of Milan in the years before Expo is described by a columnist who refers to it as ‘a “waiting city”, vaguely smacking of Beckett, quarrelsome and frightened, chased by the ghosts of the bribe-taking season, underestimated by the influential Le Monde that hurled courses on the exhibition grounds building yards using the expression chantier à l’italienne to reject the improvisation that trespasses in corruption of the “usual Italy, inadequate and always late” ’ (Schiavi 2017: 9–10).
- 5.
It is difficult to define borders of the real Milan urban region. Going beyond the current administrative organization and keeping into account the real spatial, infrastructural and socioeconomic dynamics, a useful definition has been provided by the OECD (2006). Accordingly, besides the area of the institutional Milan Metropolitan City, the Milan urban region—hosting 7.5 million inhabitants—includes also 8 Northern Italy Provinces. 7 in Lombardy (such as Bergamo, Como, Lecco, Lodi, Monza e Brianza, Pavia, and Varese) and 1 in Piedmont (such as Novara).
- 6.
See the previous note 4.
- 7.
That is, the National Law 56/2014, which introduced 10 Metropolitan Cities throughout the country (such as Bari, Bologna, Florence, Genoa, Milan, Naples, Reggio Calabria, Rome, Turin, and Venice) as an intermediate governance body between the regions and the Municipalities for the largest and/or most dynamic urban regions.
- 8.
For the same indicator, Lyon and Barcelona show, respectively, shares of 30.0 and 24.2%.
- 9.
Source: Milan Chamber of Commerce (2016 different data sets).
- 10.
‘Anyhow, the increase of the transactions has not decreased the stock of unsold housing, because a new quality product is placed on the market at a competitive price compared to the used one’ (Assolombarda 2017: 47).
- 11.
Milan has a quite high number of cars (1.912 per million inhabitants) and of bicycles in sharing mobility (3.717 per million inhabitants).
- 12.
Local actions against Expo were developed all throughout the construction phase, for instance against the realization of the water way forwarded in the Western sector of the metropolitan area, but also opposing critics and alternative issues to the mainstream positive narrative of the exhibition program and social impact. The witness of the alternative narrative is in www.noexpo.org. The peak of the struggle against the exposition was organized with the support of international ‘black blocks’ on May 1st 2015, in coincidence with the Expo opening, that caused the reaction of thousands of Milanese citizens who spontaneously met to clean the sites damaged during the riots.
- 13.
Data sets from IRS (Istituto per la Ricerca Sociale).
- 14.
See Chap. 4.
- 15.
An increase of 14% of tourists is registered in the first 4 months of 2017.
- 16.
‘For sure Milano stands out amongst the benchmarks for its international reputation also thanks to the recent success of Expo, but it is also well inserted in the global networks, through its forms too, and it enjoys a significant popularity as a whole as well as for specific segments linked both to the economic domain and the artistic-cultural one’ (Assolombarda 2017: 19).
- 17.
See Paragraph 3.2.
- 18.
See Paragraph 3.2.
- 19.
21.5 million real visitors in comparison with the expected 20 million.
- 20.
See Paragraph 3.2.
- 21.
See Paragraph 3.2.
- 22.
See Paragraph 3.2 for the final budget of the Expo investments, including both the works for the exhibition site and the ones at the scale of the urban region.
- 23.
The areas involved by the Accordo di Programma, around 1,050,000 sqm. Their main owners were originally the Milan Trade Fair Foundation (520,000 sqm), the real estate company Belgioiosa Srl (260,000 sqm), and the Rho Municipality (120,000 sqm).
- 24.
The Accordo di Programma for the Expo site and its post-event reuse was negotiated in November 2008, but it was only approved in August of 2011 (more details in Paragraph 3.2).
- 25.
More details in Paragraph 3.3.
- 26.
For the spatial schemes of the first master plans, see Bruzzese and Di Vita (2016b).
- 27.
A significant presence of international archistars has featured in the major Milanese urban projects since the 1990s, also used as a legitimation of the outcomes of negotiations that were difficult to enforce.
- 28.
See Paragraph 5.3.
- 29.
Jaques Herzog was the designer of the Expo Slow Food pavilion, even if he had left the committee in 2011, being himself very critical toward the changes that occurred against the original inspiration of the concept plan. In an interview in 2015, just before the Expo opening, he emphasizes the intention of the committee to propose a new, radical concept for international expositions, to prevent countries from presenting odd, very expensive pavilions (Gallione 2015).
- 30.
These clusters, designed by students and professors from 18 worldwide universities coordinated by the Politecnico di Milano, articulated into the following themes, related to food (cereals and tubers; cocoa; coffee; fruit and legumes; rice; spices) or to geographical areas (arid zones; bio-mediterraneum; islands).
- 31.
‘Cascina’ is the Italian name of the farmhouses typical of the Po Valley. Round 100 cascinas are still active in the Milan urban region, many of them being concentrated in the South Milan Agricultural Park. Their presence, as well as their historical and economical importance, was recalled and emphasized in the Expo Registration Dossier.
- 32.
A research ordered by the Milan Chamber of Commerce to the SdA research center of the Bocconi University in 2016 estimated that the economic impact of Expo 2015 for Milan summed 16.1 billions euros and that 115,000 jobs were created, with 10,000 new firms in the fields of building construction, service industry, tourism and accommodation. Among the economic impact, the growth of the agro-business export, involving the whole Lombardy products, is included.
- 33.
See Chap. 4.
- 34.
See Chap. 3.
- 35.
See Chap. 1.
- 36.
Several proposals concerned the localization of functions in the Expo site which had been under discussion in the past, i.e., to relocate the Court and related facilities or the General Markets or the Football Stadium.
- 37.
See, for example, the case of the Chinese pavilion in Shanghai Expo in Paragraph 5.3.
- 38.
More details in Paragraph 3.3.
- 39.
Source: www.experiencemilano.it (consulted on May 2017).
- 40.
Source: www.arexpo.it (consulted on May 2017).
- 41.
Source: www.experiencemilano.it (consulted on May 2017).
- 42.
See Chap. 5.
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Morandi, C. (2018). The Spatial Projects of the Expo 2015 and the Post-Event: The Relationship with Milan’s Urban Change Before, During, and After the Crisis. In: Mega-Events and Legacies in Post-Metropolitan Spaces. Mega Event Planning. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67768-2_2
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