DATA SHEET
Cliente: Generali Real Estate | Meliá Hotels International
Architettura, architettura degli interni, illuminotecnico facciata e rapporti con la soprintendenza: Studio Marco Piva
Restauro conservativo: Gasparoli
Progetto generale di architettura e interior design: Asah, Alvaro e Adriana Sans
Project manager e direzione lavori: Artelia
Progetto esecutivo architettura e interior design, impianti e strutture: Tekne
General contractor: Percassi
Spazi gourmet: Sunset Hospitality Group
Hotel artcurator: Gabriela Sans
Furnishings: Molteni, Tacchini, Frag, Cassina, Potocco, Tribu, Fornasetti, Kettal, Andreu World, Punt Mobles, Bivaq, Stellar Works, Gloster,
Lighting: Flos, Oluce, Foscarini, Tom Dixon, Bover, Santa&Cole, Estiluz, Menu, Vibia, Carpyem,
Photos: Meliá Hotels International
At sunset, the first purely visual impact comes from the iconic façade of Palazzo Venezia, an eclectic-style architecture designed in the 19th century by Luca Beltrami for Generali Assicurazioni, Italy’s historic major insurance company. It lights up with thousands of LED lights. The second impact is made when we enter the building, crossing the threshold of the historic door open to the courtyard that was once a parking lot for cars and, before that, for horse-drawn carriages. Now it is the site of Giardino Cordusio, a light-filled cocktail bar protected by a glass and steel structure evoking a winter garden.
To become a true hotel guest, we must go up to the fifth and last floor in the dome space now used for the reception. A scenic room full of exposed metal structures revolves around the recently restored historic wrought iron spiral staircase that has a Venetian-style seminato floor – in honor of its origins – which then extends over the entire floor.
It would take hours to explore all the many special features of Gran Meliá Palazzo Cordusio, a new icon of Milanese hospitality and, significantly, a place open to the city, with its bars, the spa surrounded by contemporary paneling and horseshoe terraces of the penthouse floor, which affords spectacular views of the Sforza Castle and the Cathedral everywhere we look.
Two leading studios, Studio Marco Piva in Milan and ASAH Architects in Spain, were in charge of the conversion project, forging a sophisticatedly elegant interior, balancing designer and tailor-made furnishing. Its 84 guest rooms and suites are furnished with designer pieces from the likes of Molteni, Cassina, Fornasetti, Flos, Oluce and Foscarini, and Rubelli fabrics are dominant in the hallways and in a special printed ceramic that feels like silk to the touch, made with Florim.
Scattered around the hotels are Gio Ponti armchairs and Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni chairs as well as sofas by Piergiorgio Cazzaniga and Patricia Urquiola. If you want to admire the handcrafted Fornasetti folding screen, book the presidential suite. In the restaurants, the Japanese Sachi and the Italian Isola, a collection of vases and works of art by Milanese and Spanish artists both pay tribute to the hotel’s dual heart as a local Milanese place and part of the Meliá Hotels International brand founded in Majorca in 1956.
