Milan – With one swift tug, Diego Della Valle, chairman and chief executive officer of the Tods Group, rolled back the curtain covering the scaffolding of Milan's City Hall facade on Friday, flanked by Mayor Giuseppe Sala. The event, which drew large crowds to the square opposite the La Scala theater, marked the start of renovation works funded by the luxury group for 2.5 million euros. These are expected to last for 16 months.
„This is the home of the Milanese, a building they love and respect, and since our ambition is to complete the works by September 2025, Diego Della Valle suggested that we celebrate with the city with a party and risotto with osobuco. [typical rice with a veal stew],” Salah said with a round of laughter.
Palazzo Marino, a 16th-century building, has housed the town hall and local administrative functions since 1861 and attracts around 5,000 visitors a year. It was last restored in the late 80s.
Della Valle admits that seeing the „Totes for Milan” plaque appear on „one of the city's most representative buildings” left him unmoved. He has invested in supporting several restoration projects over the years – the Colosseum in Rome being his most internationally famous – and reiterated that he is driven by a „strong social attitude” to give back, as he has been in the past. and not for financial gain.
He asserted that Dad's identity at City Hall in Milan was „brilliant” because he „does not share the need for a communications invasion driven by commercial goals, taking buildings hostage. [with huge advertisements]. Of course, companies have to make profit, but we must not forget that we also have moral responsibilities,'' he said.
He doesn't shy away from controversial topics, acknowledging Milan's status as an international metropolis, admitting that at the moment „the social divide is very strong” and that citizens – especially young people – are weighed down by high rents and costs. living
The message he wanted to deliver, he said, was not that work was starting, but that „Milan and the country need our support, and we must respond by giving it.”
Four facades totaling 54,000 square feet took four months. The walls overlooking the courtyard, which spans more than 21,600 square feet, will also be renovated. The scaffolding that covered the building during the work has illustrations of the Palazzo's history to this day.
Architect Paolo Pecorelli, who restored the facade of the storied luxury Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in the city, among other projects, said, „Deterioration of the materials used in the Palazzo Marino is not always visible, but it is dangerous, and it is possible. It can lead to the separation of parts of the walls.”
In 2011, Della Valle funded the work needed to restore the Colosseum in Rome with a grant of 25 million euros.
Other initiatives of the group over the years include its support of PAC, Milan's Museum of Contemporary Art, and its contribution to FAI, the National Foundation for Italy, in the restoration of the mountain that inspired Giacomo Leopardi's poem „The Infinite.” Early 1800s. In addition, it implemented several social initiatives, including the education of children in need in the Barra district of Naples; Save the Children in support of its „Punti Luce” project and a collaboration with the community of Patrignano. In 2017, the group built a shoe manufacturing plant in Arguada del Tronto, Italy, which was hit by a devastating earthquake a year earlier.