Stefano Boeri
Stefano Boeri is an Italian architect and urban planner, and a founding partner of Stefano Boeri Architetti. Among his most known projects are the Vertical Forest in Milan, the Villa Méditerranée in Marseille, and the House of the Sea of La Maddalena. He is the professor of urban planning at the Polytechnic University of Milan.
Biography
He is the son of architect and designer Cini Boeri and neurologist Renato Boeri, and the brother of Tito, economist who has held numerous public offices including President of INPS, and Sandro, a journalist. His grandfather was Senator Giovanni Battista Boeri.Stefano Boeri is an architect and urban planner. He graduated from the Milan Polytechnic with a degree in Architecture in 1980, and received a PhD in Urban Planning from the IUAV University of Venice in 1989. In 2023, he was awarded an Honorary PhD in Chemical, Geological and Environmental Sciences by the University of Milan Bicocca. He is a full professor of urban design at the Polytechnic University of Milan, and among the topics addressed in his urban design studio is the coexistence of human, animal, and plant species. This gave rise to the Milano Animal City vision. He has also been a visiting professor at various universities, including the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne and the Strelka Institute in Moscow. At Tongji University in Shanghai, he directs the Future City Lab, a postdoctoral research programme that anticipates the mutation of planetary metropolises from the perspectives of biodiversity and urban forestation.
Appointed by the Italian Prime Minister's Office, he is President of the Future of the City Foundation. In addition, he is Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Forestami Project, the urban forestation project in the Milan metropolitan area that aims to plant 3 million trees by 2030.
Thanks to its "Green Obsession" design approach, Stefano Boeri Architetti and his firm were awarded the UN SDGs Action Award in 2023 by the United Nations in the "Inspire" category because it "envisions sustainable cities and communities that prioritize health and well-being while intensifying climate action through its creative approach to urban planning, ecological connectivity and urban forestry - meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals".
Among the main actors in the climate change debate in the field of international architecture, at the UN Climate Action Summit 2019, he presented the Green Urban Oases project in New York, carried out together with FAO, C40 and other international research institutes and, in 2017, participates in the Commonwealth Regenerative Development to Reverse Climate Change program; he is co-chair and member of the scientific committee of the World Forum on Urban Forests.
During the post-earthquake reconstruction of Central Italy, Stefano Boeri was appointed by the Government's Extraordinary Commissioner for Reconstruction as an Expert Urban Planning Consultant for all earthquake-affected territories in 2016. He was Councillor for Culture, Fashion and Design of the City of Milan from 2011 to 2013. From 2008 to 2010, Stefano Boeri was a member with Richard Burdett, Jacques Herzog of Herzog & de Meuron, and William MacDonough of the Expo 2015 Architects' Consultation, in charge of the design of the concept master plan for the Milanese exposition.
In addition to being an architect, Stefano Boeri is known for his research, visions, and master plans on the future of the urban condition in the world, which have seen him involved in regeneration and development projects for metropolises and large cities, including Shanghai, São Paulo, Moscow, Geneva, Tirana, Eindhoven, Utrecht, Cancun, Riyadh, Cairo, and in Italy Milan, Genoa, Cagliari, Padua, Taranto, and many others.
Since February 2018, he has been the new president of the Milan Triennale, a four-year term. Confirmed for a second term in 2022, he is Commissioner of the 24th International Exhibition "Inequalities" scheduled for 2025.
Architecture and Urbanism
Stefano Boeri is involved in research and planning activities in architecture and urbanism on an international level. He founded Boeri Studio in 1999 in partnership with Gianandrea Barreca and Giovanni LaVarra. In 2011 he founded Stefano Boeri Architetti, in partnership with Francesca Cesa Bianchi, Marco Giorgio and Pietro Chiodi. Stefano Boeri Architetti has offices in Milan, Tirana, and Shanghai. In 2018, he founded Stefano Boeri Interiors, with Giorgio Donà.The practice's work includes projects ranging from urban planning to architecture, from interior design to product design, with a focus on the environmental and geopolitical implications of various urban processes. The design approach, Green Obsession, is described in the book 'Green Obsession: Trees Towards Cities, Humans Towards Forests' focuses on the integration of living vegetation in urban spaces through different strategies and scales, and was recognised with the UN SDGs Action Awards from the United Nations.
Among its best-known projects is the Vertical Forest in the Isola district of Milan, two 112- and 80-meter skyscrapers whose facades accommodate a floristic biodiversity that accommodates in the complex 800 trees, 15000 perennials and/or ground cover plants and 5000 shrubs. The towers, a new model of densification in height of greenery in the city, contribute to significant energy savings, environment and urban biodiversity without implying an expansion of the city into the territory. The Bosco Verticale has received numerous accolades, including the 2014 International Highrise Award sponsored by the Frankfurt Museum of Architecture and the CTBUH in 2015, as the "Best Tall Building Worldwide", sponsored at the Council on Tall Building and Urban Habitat and the Chicago Institute of Technology. The model was later adapted to urban contexts in other cities, including Nanjing, Utrecht, Paris and Eindhoven.
Among urban-scale projects, Stefano Boeri presents the “Forest City” project at COP15. “Forest Cities” are medium-sized urban settlements that are going to combine the challenge of energy self-sufficiency with the challenge of increasing biodiversity and effectively improving air quality in urban areas, thanks to the multiplication of urban plant and biological surfaces. Forest Cities' are medium-sized urban settlements that combine the challenge of energy self-sufficiency with the challenge of increasing biodiversity and effectively improving air quality in urban areas through the multiplication of urban plant and biological areas.
Boeri has developed major waterfront redevelopment projects at the European level, including the ports of Marseille, Genoa, Thessaloniki, Mytilene, Naples, Trieste, and La Maddalena. Major urban interventions include projects realised or developed for Milan, Rome, Moscow, Beijing, São Paulo, Qingdao, Marseille, Astana, Venice, Bolzano, Doha.
In 2013, on the occasion of Marseille European Capital of Culture, the Villa Méditerranée, the 9,000 sqm exhibition and research center designed by Boeri Studio that overlooks the port of Marseille and is intended to host cultural and research events on Mediterranean themes, is inaugurated. Boeri designs the Villa Méditerranée as a meeting place and fusion of the different identities present in theMediterranean, and places the sea as a reference space, thanks to the artificial dock that offers the 36-meter-high conference space a view of a large water square below.
From 2008 to 2010 Boeri was a member, along with Richard Burdett, Jacques Herzog of Herzog & de Meuron and William MacDonough, of the Expo 2015 architects' advisory board, responsible for the design of the concept masterplan for the Milanese exposition.
In 2010 Boeri saw the completion of the last skyscraper of the RCS MediaGroup headquarters, for which Boeri Studio was responsible for the entire 90,000 sqm masterplan following the winning of the international competition in 2001. Building A is a long building whose 21 500 sqm are intended to house the offices of Rizzoli Libri. The project sees the light from the demolition of the old Rizzoli building, and its facade inflections create a dialogue with the rest of the buildings already completed for the RCS headquarters.
In 2009, Boeri completed the redevelopment of the former Military Arsenal on La Maddalena, Sardinia, creating a series of new spaces including a conference center, commercial spaces and a marina. The project, originally conceived to host the 2009 G8, then moved to L'Aquila by the Berlusconi government, was completed in just 18 months and then seized following a scandallinked to bribery and illegitimate procurement. The complex is a combination of new construction andconversions of existing buildings, and includes a conference center, two large commercial spaces,a dock for 700 boats, all designed and built with strict respect for the natural landscape and following strict principles of sustainable architecture. The Sea House, the conference center,is a glass and basalt prism built cantilevering over the water. The large conference hall is suspended 6meters above the water and looks toward Gallura. The design interprets the relationship between the surrounding elementnaturals and the rigorous forms of the Italian military architecture tradition.
Editorial Activity
Stefano Boeri was editor of the international architecture periodical Domus from 2004 to 2007. The final issue of the magazine under his editorship, entitled Esperanto, was produced without text in order to explore a universal visual language that could transcend language barriers. This edition featured a cover by Ettore Sottsass and contributions in the form of drawings by Enzo Mari, as well as images by Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Yona Friedman, Gaetano Pesce, Olafur Eliasson, Rem Koolhaas, Alessandro Mendini, and Gabriele Basilico.He edited the magazine Abitare from 2007 to 2010. He has also collaborated with various other magazines and newspapers, including Wired.
He is the author of numerous books on urbanism, architecture, and contemporary culture. His publications include "L'anticittà", "Biomilano: Glossary of Ideas for a Metropolis Based on Biodiversity” and “USE: Uncertain States of Europe”. In his work Doing More with Less, Boeri proposes a new, more pragmatic political vision capable of interpreting the fundamental themes of contemporary living, from rights and participation to culture and architecture.
Together with Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist, he is the co-author of Mutations, an atlas of urban change on a global scale prepared with the Harvard University research group. Together with photographer Gabriele Basilico, he is the author of Italy: Transversal Sections of a Country.
In 1997, he was the managing curator of the architecture section at the Milan Triennale.