Terrazza Martini

The varied and complex history of the Martini Terrace has left deep impressions in the Company’s history, and Milan’s, and in the imagination of its intellectual circles. The “Martini Terrace skyscraper” (as the building built in 1957 by architect Luigi Mattioni is commonly known) has been a point of reference for many great names in Milan cultural circles. Guido Vergani, writing in Corriere della Sera in March 2003: “The European tours of the leading names in entertainment, science and culture came to this venue when they reached Milan. The Martini Terrace was the geographic centre of events, special occasions and both social and work-related events; it ‘worked’ in splendid isolation.” This view is confirmed by the recollections of Natalia Aspesi: “Being invited was a privilege,” she recalls, “because it always meant being in the middle of events, changes, the future. There is no place in Italy, perhaps even in Europe, where so many famous people came and went, happy to be there, to encounter Milanese society. Each time there was the enchantment of listening to the world outside, of chatting with people it would otherwise have been difficult to approach.” In recent years every effort has been made to enhance and continue that experience. First and foremost, the special relationship with the cinema continues. Today it features much of the new Italian cinema, introduced here to the press. And yet there is no shortage of encounters with great artists, invited here in collaboration with the city government and open to the public. The challenge, through cinema, is still a matter of innovating ways to be “part of the system,” offering Milan a space that serves as a laboratory of ideas, a unique place for dialoguing with the contemporary world.