Procuratie Vecchie

The Procuratie Vecchie runs along the entire north side of one of the world’s best-known squares. Built in the first half of the sixteenth century under a programme of urban renewal, with three architects involved, it set the language later followed by the buildings on the other sides of the square.

The insurance company that began life here, and over the years acquired nearly all of it, set out to bring the building into closer contact with the city through its foundation on the third floor, opening a large part of the building to the public for the first time in half a century.

The British design team’s Milan office did not rely on a single gesture but on a series of interventions that interpret both historical changes and practical adaptations: restoration of the prestigious offices on the first and second floors, new vertical circulation to improve access, and renovation of the third floor with exhibition spaces, workspaces, event rooms and an auditorium.

The work draws on old local building techniques and artisan craft for floors, walls and ceilings: pastellone and terrazzo, marmorino and scialbatura, cocciopesto and cotto. The aim was not to impose but to inherit, completing what has stood for centuries into a single whole.