CityLife

CityLife is a residential, commercial and business district situated a short distance from the old city centre of Milan, Italy; it has an area of . It is a redevelopment project on the former grounds of Fiera Milano after its relocation to the nearby town of Rho. The development is being carried out by a company controlled by Generali Group after its winning offer of €523 million for the rights. The project was designed by famous architects such as Zaha Hadid, Arata Isozaki and Daniel Libeskind. History The new exhibition centre in Rho-Pero opened in 2005, 85 years after the first Trade Fair in April 1920. The Fiera’s move to an area outside Milan benefitted the city by eliminating traffic problems caused by big events and by freeing up a highly valuable area. An international tender for the redevelopment of the old Fiera area, seeking to create an unprecedented level of connectivity with the surrounding urban context, concluded in 2004. The CityLife project won the competition due to the high level of architectural and environmental quality it offered. The 20 exhibition halls, with a total volume of about , were demolished and submitted to remediation in 2007 and 2008. Painstaking efforts were made to protect and recover the area’s stock of trees, 120 of which were saved and relocated in the public parks across Milan. Since 2007 a Permanent Environmental Observatory has been working to protect the surrounding districts. Administered by local public authorities, it controls the noise, dust and environmental impact during all stages of construction, using among other things sound-absorbing and dust protective solutions.