Pirelli Tower

Gio Ponti's 1960 icon of Italian rationalism beside Centrale station — the 'Pirellone,' a slim, tapering tower whose diamond-shaped plan and pale stone curtain walls made it a symbol of postwar Milanese design and industry. Built for the tire company on the site of its first factory, it was among the tallest buildings in Europe and remains one of the most elegant towers of its era anywhere. It now houses regional government offices. For visitors, it's a landmark of mid-century modernism — Ponti's masterpiece of lightness and proportion, best appreciated from a distance where its knife-edge profile reads against the sky.