Zegna Unveils Flowerbeds for Milan’s Piazza Duomo Inspired by a Painting
MILAN — Milan’s Piazza Duomo has new greenery, courtesy of Zegna.
On Friday, at the tail end of Milan Design Week, the city’s Mayor Giuseppe Sala and Gildo Zegna, chairman and chief executive officer of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group, unveiled the flowerbeds framing the square opposite the Duomo cathedral that the luxury fashion company has pledged to take care of for the next three years.
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“It’s an honor for our family to hand this project to Milan’s municipality,” Zegna said during a press conference held at the town hall Palazzo Marino. “Beyond the territory of Trivero [in the Piedmont region, where the company is headquartered], Milan is our second home. We believed in the city years ago with our headquarters by [architect] Antonio Citterio, which currently employ 300 people. We believe in it every season when our artistic director Alessandro Sartori stages his shows here and we’re very close to Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana and its president Carlo Capasa, a far-sighted executive in bringing [the fashion community] together,” he said.
“This is an initiative showing Zegna’s sensitivity and loyalty to the company’s founding principles, in addition to their commitment to support the city,” said Sala, adding that it falls in line with the municipality’s initiatives geared at preserving local biodiversity, such as the Prada-supported Forestami.
Called “Oasi Zegna nel Mondo,” or “Oasi Zegna in the World,” the project is only the beginning of a comprehensive program that will see the realization of new Oasi Zegna extensions around the world.
“It’s a project inspired by the environmental responsibility of the Oasi Zegna,” said the company’s chairman and CEO.
Zegna has worked with botanical and landscape experts led by Vittorio Peretto to bring some of the signature elements of the Oasi’s vegetation to Milan, while respecting its biodiversity and the ecosystem. Garden design was inspired by artist Dino Buzzati’s 1957 painting “Piazza del Duomo di Milano,” which put into dialogue the square with the natural environment.
The flowerbeds consist of four groves of uneven-aged shrub camphor, evergreen and leafy plants. Among these groves, from fall to late spring there will also be rhododendrons — signature plants at the Oasi Zegna — and philadelphus. This will ensure respect for the biodiversity and seasonality of the plants, which will be replanted in Oasi Zegna at the end of the cycle.
Plants of the previous flowerbeds will be replanted elsewhere, Sala said. Zegna succeeds global coffee giant Starbucks, which planted palm trees in Piazza Duomo in 2017 as part of a contract it won to restyle the green spaces surrounding the equestrian monument to former King Victor Emmanuel II.
The Oasi Zegna is a territory spanning more than 62 miles designed and created by founder Ermenegildo Zegna in the mountains of Northern Italy, Piedmont, around Trivero where the company is based. In the late 1920s, he planted 500,000 pine trees, created the road 232 connecting the two sides of the mountain and made them accessible for all.
Located a 90-minute drive from Milan, the Oasi offers views of the Alps, from the Monviso pyramid-shaped mountain to the Monte Rosa massif.
“The third and fourth generation of the family have not only safeguarded but also helped relaunch the Oasi,” Zegna offered. “Our responsibility as entrepreneurs is to feel the moral duty to support our country and Made in Italy. We need to take care of beauty, in our case in Biella and Milan. This is our challenge, which we think we have to export around the world in the interest of our country,” he said.
Zegna was flanked by other family members including his son Edoardo Zegna, chief marketing, digital and sustainability officer at the group; cousin Paolo Zegna, and Anna Zegna, president of Fondazione Zegna.
Marking the unveiling of the flowerbed, Zegna mounted a kiosk handing sprigs of rhododendron to citizens, who began queueing in the early morning on Friday.
This is the second initiative dedicated to the Oasi Zegna this week. Last Sunday the luxury company officially unveiled the “Born in Oasi Zegna” book published by Rizzoli through an exhibition open to the public through Sunday at the Zegna headquarters.
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