Gucci Hub Milan Headquarters building, Milanese old Caproni factory news and photos, Italian famous fashion brand HQ

Gucci Hub Milan Headquarters Building Design

Former Caproni factory – Via Mecenate Building in North Italy design by Piuarch Architects.

post updated 16 February 2024

20 Mar 2019

Gucci Hub Milan HQ Building opens to the public

23-24 March 2019

You will have the chance to enjoy this redevelopment project of the old Caproni factory this weekend.

We are happy that FAI – Fondo Ambiente Italiano exceptionally opens Gucci Hub to the public

Photos: Andrea Martiradonna

19 Nov 2017

Gucci Headquarters Building in Milan

Architects: Piuarch

Location: Milano, Italy

Gucci Hub Milan Headquarters Building

GUCCI HUB

The old Caproni factory, built in 1915 in the eastern suburbs of Milan, has been brought back to life thanks to a renovation and redevelopment project transforming this old plant – which stands out due to its warehouses with shed-style rooms, large hangar and internal corridors – into the new Milan offices of the famous fashion brand, Gucci.

The premises in via Mecenate, which used to be used for de¬signing, assembling and testing aeroplanes, have now been developed into a large com¬plex holding offices, showrooms and spaces for holding fashion shows and operations con¬nected with graphics, as well as a canteen and restaurant.

The project, based on renovating this indus¬trial site, focuses on enhancing the stylistic features of the 1920s architecture.

Regenerating the old facilities has resulted in a modern office complex, which manages to meet modern-day needs and requirements in a construction with powerful historical connotations. The abandoned industrial warehouses, set out in a regular pattern across the site and featuring modular structural bays, have been renovated and enhanced: covered by a shed-style roof that lets zenith light flow into the interiors and featuring exposed-brick facades, the spatial layout of these buildings creates seamless interaction between the inside and outside.

The large hangar, once used for assembling aeroplanes, has been transformed and can now host events and fashion shows, thanks to the careful renovation project. Inside the regular layout of structures, a central pedestrian path connects the axis along via Mecenate to a large covered space: this internal plaza, covered by thin metal structures engineered back at the start of the century, sets out the various functions inside Gucci’s Milan offices.

Pedestrian paths run between the buildings, which are mainly located on the ground floor, in a sequence of solid structures and empty spaces in which landscaping plays a key role: running right across the site and smoothly interacting between the old buildings and green spaces. The large plaza, surrounded by exposed brick fronts, is livened up by carefully positioned trees, while a thick wood of lime trees gives the project a distinctly “green” feel, focusing carefully on sustainable design.

The project incorporates a six-storey tower in its industrial fabric of warehouses and hangers, which interacts closely with the old constructions. This parallelepiped, surrounded by a glass facade and covered with a regular pattern of sunscreens, breaks down the site’s symmetry and tends to draw together all the different functions.

Constructed out of glass surfaces, the structure is covered with a web of vertical elements made of a dark-coloured metal that shelter the interiors from the sunlight: this distinctly tall and dark-coloured modern building sets up powerful chromatic relations with the red-coloured exposed bricks of the low-level warehouses.

Gucci Hub Milan – Building Information

Address: Via Mecenate 87, Milan, Italy
Built: 2012-16
Architectural design: Piuarch
Floor space: 30.000 sqm
Client: Kering Spa
Cost: 95.000.000 euro

Photographs © Andrea Martiradonna

Piuarch

Founded in 1996 by Francesco Fresa, Germán Fuenmayor, Gino Garbellini and Monica Tricario, Piuarch is a group of forty architects and engineers from all over the world led by four partners and 8 associates. It works in the field of architecture, ranging from retail to fashion, office building design, the development of residential complexes, town planning, and cultural recovery works.

The winner of the “2013 Italian Architect of the Year” prize and of two Gold Medals for Honorable Mention at the Milan Triennale, and an exhibitor several times at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Piuarch is one of the major names in architecture in Milan, with numerous internationally built designs developed for prestigious fashion brands (Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Givenchy).