We last visited Milan for ‘Expo 2015’, the World exhibition. You can read about our adventures there in my posts at: https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/sgarbi-con-garbo-at-expo-2015/ (and following).

We arrived to this seemingly modern-looking but actually astoundingly heritage-rich city by train. I am old enough to remember the construction of the ‘Pirellone’, that marvellously elegant skyscraper one sees when stepping out from Milan’s Stazione Centrale into Piazza Duca d’Aosta.  First projected in 1950 it was built between 1956 and 1961. The great modernist architects Gio Ponte and Pier Luigi Nervi were among the group that designed this pioneering structure which from 1958 to 1966 held the record for being the tallest building in the European Union at a height of 417 feet and 32 stories. In Milan the Pirellone held the record for even longer since there was a complete lull in skyscraper building there until this millennium.

‘Pirellone’ means ‘big Pirelli’ and the skyscraper was built by the rubber manufacturing company, founded in 1872 by Giovanni Battista Pirelli, for its headquarters. Indeed, around the building the pavements are all made of rubber. In 1978, however, Pirelli sold its Pirellone to the Lombardy regional council. The regional council occupied this building until quite recently when it moved across to another skyscraper, the Palazzo Lombardia which is even higher at 528 feet.

(Palazzo Lombardia)

This meant that the Pirellone was put up for sale. Only yesterday I read in the papers that the European Medicines Agency, formerly in London, is to move into it as a result of the insecurity caused by the Brexit disaster. The EMA is responsible for the evaluation of medicinal products and for producing a common European code for such item. This means that whatever medicinal product one purchases in any European Union pharmacy will have been tested according to agreed criteria. I don’t know what’s going to happen to medicine evaluation and control in the UK. Probably a UK equivalent duplicating all the work done by the EMA at extra cost to the taxpayer. Another agency, the European Banking authority, is also moving out of the UK and searching for a new base for its operations. Probably Frankfurt, already Europe’s second greatest financial centre, will be its new home and I wouldn’t be surprised if it soon swops place with the City of London as Europe’s number one banking hub.

This is all very sad, especially for those persons losing their jobs (although I’m sure that relocation deals will be generous).  But, as the slogans went, Britain wants to ‘regain control’ and will undoubtedly play into the hands of American free-trade deals meaning that everyone in the UK will no longer have the surety of knowing exactly what they are eating or what they are injecting or what the pound will be worth the next day.

On a brighter note I should add that my wife was a top-ranking employee of Pirelli as an interpreter (she is fluent in five languages) with her own secretary.  Regrettably the deal with a major UK tyre manufacturer was unsuccessful and Pirelli relocated from London. Today, as so often is happening with other companies, Pirelli is owned by the Chinese ChemChina which also holds the Bridgestone, Michelin, Continental and Goodyear tyre companies.

PS In case you might have wondered, my wife did not appear on any of the iconic Pirelli calendars (although she certainly deserves to have been featured). So as not to disappoint you completely, however here’s one page from the 1974 edition.