On the occasion of the restoration and redevelopment of Torre Velasca, Olivari, 57 years later, renews its
commitment by supplying the tower with the iconic Velasca handles, designed by Studio BBPR in 1956.

Torre Velasca, built in 1956–1958 to the design of Studio BBPR, is the building that made the greatest change to the Milan skyline during the city’s postwar reconstruction.
The tower is considered a symbol of the economic boom for the originality of its urban image, its exceptional size, expressive strength and novel mix of antiquity and modernity, whose material aspect and visual language evoke the ancient shapes of Lombard architecture.
Standing out from the urban context, the immediate recognizability of its profile has made Torre Velasca a Milanese icon, a modern monument suspended between old and new, sky and earth.
The tower’s famous shape, a shaft topped by a cantilevered block, is a deliberately Italian interpretation of the high-rise building type, a refusal to simply adopt a skyscraper model from overseas

As with most of the most iconic buildings of the 1950s, the design of Torre Velasca extended down to the finest details.
For the occasion, BBPR designed the Velasca handles, which were first produced by Olivari in 1956.

In addition to the numerous built-in furniture elements they conceived for the tower, BBPR designed a custom door handle named the Velasca in homage to the building.
Produced by Olivari from 1956, the handle has a sinuous shape of Baroque influence while being rooted in sound functional principles.
At a remove from rigid rationalist geometry, the handle shows a sensibility to organic shapes, an expression of the sculptural vitality that would characterise much of BBPR’s postwar work. Made in polished shell-moulded brass, the handle came with a matching rosette and key-hole plate, both having an unusual truncated-cone shape.
The family of Velasca handles, produced until 2005, included a window handle, a hinged pull and a door-knob, all designed by the architects Belgiojoso, Peressutti and Rogers.
In 1959, Fonderia e Officina B. Olivari wrote to Studio BBPR: “On the coming 13th of June, the jury of the Compasso d’Oro award will assemble for the first time. We have organised the delivery of several samples of the Velasca door and window handles. Dutifully yours.”
That year, when the fifth edition of the award established by the department store La Rinascente was organised by the Associazione per il Disegno Industriale for the first time, 220 industrialists and craftspeople participated with around 1,200 objects.
The jury, composed of Bruno Alfieri, Vico Magistretti, Giulio Minoletti, Augusto Morello and Giovanni Romano, attributed one of the recognitions to the Fiat 500 automobile, an unsurpassed Italian icon.
For the recent renovation and redevelopment of Torre Velasca, Olivari supplied the handles anew. These were integrated with a number of originals that were preserved and restored for the apartments.

In 2012 Milan’s Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape declared Torre Velasca “of particularly important historical and artistic interest”.
Despite still being a Milanese icon, the building had long lost its vital, dynamic role in the city fabric. The ravages of time were visible, as were the limits of a functional configuration that perhaps no longer met the requirements of contemporary reality.
In 2019, Hines, a real estate investment, development and management firm, acquired Torre Velasca and entrusted the redevelopment of the tower to Asti Architetti from Milan in collaboration with the firms CEAS, ESA Engineering and YARD REAAS.
The conservation and restoration project was designed to integrate energy-efficient solutions, aligning with ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) standards.
The interventions were carefully coordinated with the Superintendency to ensure respect for the original design and its meaning The wish to maintain the stylistic imprint of the BBPR project was constantly balanced against current standards of sustainability, flexibility and energy efficiency.
The original mixed-use functions are intact, with offices, apartments and shops, while floors 1 and 18 now host restaurants. At the tower’s foot, the ground floor of the outward-projecting volume is connected with the floor above and the first underground floor. Respectively, these host entrances to the first-floor restaurant and the underground wellness area, gymnasium and pool.

According to type, the apartments were renewed in their materials. The apartments’ initial configuration by BBPR was reinstated. The offices have been redesigned with an open-space plan, a flexible layout and optimal digital connectivity. Toilets are positioned in blocks on the two short ends of the building. The 15th floor was left in its original layout of separated offices. All parts that had been added over the years were removed, and all non-original elements were substituted with parts having similar aesthetics and design to the originals.
The intervention also included the restoration of deteriorated structural elements, prefabricated components, and plasterwork.
As with other interior fittings, new door handles supplied for the building are the “Velasca” model, now finished in polished PVD SuperOro.
Finally, the renewal effort improved the urban area where the tower meets the ground and the space of the piazza around it, which is now conceived as an exchange between the private and public realms, in line with a sustainable rehabilitation strategy and the enhancement of an iconic landmark.
The creation of a pedestrian-friendly area separated from the roadway and embellished with benches, olive trees, magnolias and the insertion of planted borders gives the city a swath of connective fabric between the shops, the entrances to the tower, and the sitting areas, forming a kind of “non-clerical churchyard” at the foot of the building, so described by the architect Paolo Asti.
In addition, two exits of the Milan underground line M3 lie at the extremities of the new piazza, offering open accessibility to the space.