“It’s probably the most well-known place in Milan”
Posted in: Dezeen and MINI World Tour 2013, Milan 2013, World Tour 2013: MilanDezeen and MINI World Tour: architect, designer and keen footballer Fabio Novembre takes us to the San Siro Stadium and tells us how he’s rethinking the brand of soccer club AC Milan, the second most-famous Italian brand after Ferrari (+ movie).
“I’m doing an interesting job about rethinking the brand of the soccer team,” says Novembre. “We’re trying to think about a soccer team that represents a new Italy.”
The San Siro stadium is home to both AC Milan and FC Internazionale (Inter Milan). It was originally built in 1926 by architect Ulisse Stacchini, who also designed Milan’s grand Centrale railway terminus.
It was extensively remodelled for the 1990 World Cup by architects Ragazzi and Partners and now has a capacity of 80,000.
“It’s probably the most well-known place in Milan,” says Novembre. “It’s like a pagan dome, and pagan temple. Definitely stadiums are the new domes, the new piazzas. People meet in stadiums.”
Novembre is working with AC Milan to help reposition the club as a symbol of modern Italy. “After Ferrari, the most famous Italian brand in the world is AC Milan,” he says. “It is a very special soccer team because it’s got the city in its name. So it carries with it a lot of responsibility.”
He was invited to work with the club by its director, Barbara Berlusconi, daughter of tycoon and former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns AC Milan. One of the ideas is to make the stadium more family-friendly.
Above: image of Mario Balottelli courtesy of the Press Association
“What we want to try to achieve is to take families into stadiums again,” Novembre says. “I mean not any more crazy supporters like hooligans but to give back the most important sport in the world to the best people – to children and families.”
Novembre also thinks the club, which features the black striker Mario Balotelli and Muslim goalscorer Stephan El Shaarawy among its star players, can help forge a new identity for the whole country.
Above: image of Stephan El Shaarawy courtesy of the Press Association
“I mean think about Mario Balotelli [who was born to Ghanaian parents in Sicily but later fostered by an Italian family]. Mario Balotelli was adopted by an Italian family from Bergamo. He speaks the Bergamo dialect. Or Stephan El Shaarawy, the child of Egyptian parents, but he was born in Milano, he speaks the Milanese dialect. That’s a new Italy that we’re trying to imagine, to represent this country.”
We drove out to the stadium in our MINI Cooper S Paceman. Last week we published a tour of Milan with Novembre, who talked about the importance of the annual furniture fair to the city.
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