Stefano Boeri

Stefano Boeri
Boeri in 2009
Born	(1956-11-25) 25 November 1956 Milan, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Alma mater	Polytechnic University of Milan Iuav University of Venice
Occupation	Architect
Practice	Stefano Boeri Architetti
Buildings	Vertical Forest Villa Méditerranée G8 Maddalena RCS Headquarters

Stefano Boeri (born 25 November 1956) 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

Boeri was born into a bourgeois household in Milan, the son of Cini, an architect and designer, and Renato, a neurologist. Stefano Boeri is Tito (leading welfare economist) and Sandro's (journalist) brother.

Boeri earned a master's degree in architecture in 1980 from the Polytechnic University of Milan and a PhD in Urban Planning in 1989 from Iuav University of Venice. In 2023 he received an Honorary PhD in Chemical, Geological and Environmental Sciences from the Bicocca University of Milan.

As well as his tenured position as professor of Urban Design at the Polytechnic University of Milan (among the themes addressed in his Urban Design Studio, the co-existence between human, animal and plant species gave birth to the vision Milano Animal City (2014 - 2016)), he has also been a visiting professor at many international universities, including the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands, and the Polytechnic University of Lausanne.

In Shanghai, he directs the Future City Lab, a post-PhD research program anticipating the mutation of planetary metropolises, from the perspective of biodiversity and urban forestation, at Tongji University.

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 (2020 - ongoing), 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 (Mantua, 2018 - Washington DC, 2023).

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 (since 2019), Marco Giorgio (since 2019) and Pietro Chiodi (since 2023). Stefano Boeri Architetti has offices in Milan, Tirana, and Shanghai (founded, in 2014, with Yibo Xu). In 2018, he founded Stefano Boeri Architetti Interiors, with Giorgio Donà.

His work is exhibited internationally,including Biennale di Venezia, Nederlands Instituut Architectuur, IFA Institut Français d'Architecturein Paris, Arc-en-Rêve Centre d'Architecture Bordeaux, Tokyo Art Gallery, Chengdu Biennale,Triennale di Milano, Beijing Design Week, Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan, the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, and the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

Stefano Boeri's work ranges from the production of urban visions and architecture to interior and product design, with a constant focus on the geopolitical and environmental implications of urban phenomena. The design approach of Stefano Boeri Architetti's firm, Green Obsession-presented in the volume “Green Obsession: Trees Towards Cities, Humans Towards Forests” (Actar,2021)-is embodied in the integration of living nature into architecture, with different strategies, modes and scales. Thanks to its “Green Obsession,” studio Stefano Boeri Architetti was awarded the UN SDGs Action Award in 2023 by the United Nations in the “Inspire” category.

Among its best-known projects is the Vertical Forest (Boeri Studio) 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 (of 480 medium and large size, 300 from smaller sizes), 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.

After this first experiment in sustainable housing, the firm has won a competition in Lausanne, Switzerland, to develop this model with a new 117-meter tower, which will house more than 100 cedar trees (it will in fact be called “Cedar Tower”), shrubs and plants for a total area of 3 000 sqm. Boeri is further exporting the Bosco Verticale model, which will also be materialized in Nanjing, Utrecht, Paris and Eindhoven (in a social housing version). 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.

Boeri has developed major waterfront redevelopment projects at the European level, including the ports of Marseille, Genoa, Thessaloniki, Mytilene, Naples, Trieste, and La Maddalena. 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 ofMarseille and is intended to host cultural and research events on Mediterranean themes, is inaugurated. Boerdesigns 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 m² masterplan following the winning of the international competition in 2001. Building A is a long building whose 21 500 m² 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 theRCS headquarters (building C).

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.

Research activity

In 1993, Boeri founded a research agency for territorial investigation based in Milan, called Multiplicity, concerned about contemporary urbanism, architecture, visual arts and general culture, through which he promoted research and exhibitions on the transformation of the inhabited territories that have been presented in many museums and exhibition venues and international universities. Multiplicity was involved in three major research projects: “USE-Uncertain states of Europe”, a research on territorial transformations in contemporary Europe, presented for the first time as part of "Mutations" (Bordeaux, 2000); “Solid Sea”, a study of the Mediterranean presented at Documenta11 (Kassel, 2002); and “Border-Device(s)”, a research into the proliferation of controversial boundaries in the contemporary world, produced within the exhibition "Territories" at Berlin Kunst Werke and Utopia Station (Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art, 2003).

Cultural and editorial activity

In the period between April 2011 and March 2013 Boeri was appointed Head of Culture, Design and Fashion for the city of Milan, developing projects such as Piano City Milano and Book City Milano, both of which are still celebrated on a yearly basis; contemporary art exhibitions for internationally renowned artists, such as Marina Abramovic’s performance of The Abramovic Method in PAC (Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea); an Alberto Garutti retrospective; and a Jeff Wall exhibition entitled “Actuality”. All this was in addition to the major and classical exhibitions of Picasso at the Palazzo Reale (the most visited exhibition in Italy in the year 2012 ), the show Bramantino a Milano at the “Castello Sforzesco”, and efforts to improve and relocate the exhibition of “La Pieta Rondanini”, one of Michelangelo’s last sculptures dated to 1552.

In 2011, he was curator for the research "Sao Paulo Calling", promoted for the Housing Secretary of São Paulo, which organised an extensive international network of research on the phenomenon of informal settlements in São Paulo and around the world, such as Rome, Nairobi, Medellin, Mumbai, Moscow and Baghdad.

Since 2013 he has been the artistic director of MI/ARCH, an international festival of architecture promoted by the Polytechnic University of Milan. To date, it has involved more than 60 speakers ranging between architects, artist, and photographers, among which are Renzo Piano, Rem Koolhaas, Elizabeth Diller, Steven Holl, and many others. He was also the artistic director of the International Festival of Architecture FESTARCH, which was held in Cagliari (2008 and 2009) and Perugia (2011 and 2012).

In the period between July 2014 and October 2015 Boeri was Councillor for Culture and Major Events for the Mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, and was in charge of the Artistic Direction of the “Estate Fiorentina 2014”, an urban summer festival with live music, theatre performances, and several cultural projects by local organisations.

He was also the founder and director of the web platform theTomorrow (www.thetomorrowlab.net), which promotes an exchange of ideas on European culture, and part of the scientific board of the Galleria Degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy, a palace and Italian classical art museum, along with Davide Gasparotto, senior curator of the paintings department at The J. Paul Getty Museum, and Carl Brandon Strehlke, curator emeritus of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

From 2004 to 2007 Stefano Boeri was editor at Domus, an international architecture periodical. Famous was the last issue under his editorship, Esperanto, in which the magazine came out without texts, with a cover by Ettore Sottsass, drawings by Enzo Mari, and image contributions by Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Yona Friedman, Gaetano Pesce, Olafur Eliasson, Rem Koolhaas, Alessandro Mendini, and Gabriele Basilico. Boeri wanted to suggest the idea of a design accessible to all, regardless of language, that speaks the universal language of images.

In 2007 Boeri moved to the editorship of Abitare, which he kept until 2010. He also collaborated with various magazines and newspapers, including Wired.

Boeri is the author of numerous books, including The Anti-City, Biomilano. Glossary of ideas for a biodiversity-based metropolis, USE - Uncertain States of Europe. In the work, Doing More with Less, Boeri proposes a new, more pragmatic political vision capable of interpreting the fundamental issues of contemporary living, from rights to participation, from culture to architecture. Boeri is co-author, with Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist, of Mutations, an atlas of global urban mutations, written with the Harvard research group dedicated to the study of urban phenomena. With Gabriele Basilico, he co-authored Italy: Sections of the Italian Landscape. In 1997 he was Managing Curator of the Architecture section for the Milan Triennale.

Stefano Boeri Architetti is also promoting cultural events and its projects have been shown in international expositions as Venice Biennale, Beijing Design Week, Milan Furniture Fair, Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art and Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and published on international magazines such as: A+U, Domus, Abitare, AREA, ARCHIS, ICON, Lotus, 2G, MIT Press, Harvard Design Magazine, Financial Times, Elle, La Repubblica. Stefano Boeri received international prizes and recognitions.

Stefano Boeri Architetti

Boeri founded in 1999 the Boeri Studio with Gianandrea Barreca and Giovanni La Varra, that in 2011 became Stefano Boeri Architetti, in partnership with Francesca Cesa Bianchi (since 2019), Marco Giorgio (since 2019) and Pietro Chiodi (since 2023). SBA is currently based in Milan, Shanghai, and Tirana, researching and practicing contemporary architecture and urbanism, with a focus on biodiversity and sustainable architecture. Stefano Boeri Architetti has recently completed the Vertical Forest, two sustainable residential towers based on urban biodiversity in Milan.

Stefano Boeri Architetti is also curating Skolkovo innovation center in Moscow, together with Jean Pistre, Speech, David Chipperfield, Mohsen Mostafavi, Kazuyo Sejima, OMA, Herzog & de Meuron and it is developing the detailed masterplan of D4 district with the Moscow-based studio Project Meganom. Stefano Boeri has developed various plans for the reconversion of European waterfronts (Genoa, Naples, Trieste, Cagliari, Salonika, Mytilene) and historical industrial plants redevelopment as the project for Villa Méditerranée, opened in 2013 for Marseilles European Capital of Culture. The Villa Méditerranée, a 9,000-square-meter exhibition and research center designed by Boeri Studio, overlooks the port of Marseille and is intended to host cultural and research events on the themes of the Mediterranean. Boeri designs the Villa Méditerranée as a meeting place and fusion of the different identities present in the Mediterranean, and sets 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.

Stefano Boeri Architetti is also very active abroad, outside of Europe, specially in China with the headquarter in Shanghai the studio is developing projects as: The renovation of the former Shanghai Stock Exchange into a cultural exchange center, a mix-use development in Guizhou, in the 1000 Peaks Valley where a minimum standard of 8 sqm agriculture and greenery, together with 8 shrubs, 2 trees, 40 bushes, per inhabitant is inserted into the urban plan, of most interest is the project of the Liuzhou “Forest City” recently presented at the Paris Climate Conference (COP21), a sustainable city of 30,000 inhabitants able to consume tons of CO₂ and generate oxygen inserted in the region between Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, one of the most polluted regions in the world.

SBA was selected with three other teams by the Egyptian Government to propose a redesign (then not realized) the triangle of Maspero in the heart of downtown Cairo, along the Nile waterfront. The studio is also engage to develop a new general plans in 2016, the first one is a strategic vision for Tirana as a metropolitan entity (being the widest national and territorial urban reform in Albania in the last 25 years) and Padua Plan. The studio also designed the new urban/territorial plans for the Republic of San Marino, Molise Region, Riccione, Cagliari Seafront, South Salerno Costal Masterplan, and the Valdinievole masterplan.

Stefano Boeri Architetti - Selected works

• Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) (Boeri Studio) is a model for sustainable residential buildings. A project for metropolitan reforestation that regenerates the environment and the urban biodiversity without expanding the city upon the territory. Vertical Forest is a model of vertical densification of nature within the city. The first unit of Vertical Forest is formed by two residential towers, 119 and 87 meters high, realized in the centre of Milan Isola neighbourhood, that will host 900 trees and over 2000 plants from a wide range of floral species distributed in relation to the façade position towards the sun. The project, inaugurated in October 2104, was awarded the 2014 International Highrise Award and the 2015 CTBUH Award, as Best Tall Building Worldwide sponsored by the Council for Tall Building and Urban Habitat and the Illinois Institute of Technology The project was developed and followed by ex firm partners Gianandrea Barreca and Giovanni La Varra. After this first sustainable model of housing, the studio recently won a competition, in Lausanne, Switzerland, to further develop this model and build a new 117 meters tall residential tower, which will host more than 100 cedar trees and will be covered by shrubs and plants over an area of 3.000 sqm, which construction is scheduled to start in 2017.
• Villa Méditerranée (Boeri Studio) opened in 2013 for Marseilles European Capital of Culture as the new Centre Régional de la Méditerranée in Marseille, France. The multifunctional building overlooking the Port of Marseille docks, 9,000sqm, the project points the sea as its space of reference. The seawater is brought into the project through an artificial dock, between the suspended cantilever of 36m and the underwater conference center. The water plaza enclosed in the building interior lounge is the public space that represents the power of the sea.
• Urban Oasis– Bratislava, Slovacchia, 2024 – ongoing
• Ramagrama Stupa – masterplan, Lumbini, Nepal, 2024 – ongoing
• Redevelopment Case ALER – Monza, Italy, 2023 – ongoing
• Tratturi Masterplan – masterplan, Regione Molise, Italy, 2023 – ongoing
• Floating Forest - Milano Design Week installation, Milano, Italy, 2022
• Dubai Vertical Forest - presented at COP27 in Sharm, the project is the first vertical forest prototype for MENA areas, aiming to integrate the benefits of urban forestry in arid climates, Dubai, UAE, 2022 - ongoing
• Borgo Verde Conegliano – masterplan, Conegliano, Italy 2022 – ongoing
• A Green Promenade for Cagliari's waterfront – Cagliari, Italy, 2022 – ongoing
• Redevelopment ex Banca d’Italy – Cremona, Italy, 2022 – ongoing
• Quattro Volte –Ostia Antica Archaeological Park, Roma, Italy, 2022
• Hanji House – pavillion, Venezia, Italy, 2021 – 2022
• Rehabilitation Center – Shenzhen, Cina, 2020 – ongoing
• Xi’an Culture Modern Technology Experience Center – Xi’an, Cina, 2020 – ongoing
• A dead wood - stage project for the tragedy the Trojan Women by Euripides, Siracusa, Italy, 2019
• New Access to the Domus Aurea – Roma, Italy, 2019 – 2021
• Polcevera Park and the Red Circle – Genoa, Italy, 2019-ongoing
• Tirana Vertical Forest – vertical forest, Tirana, Albania, 2019 – ongoing
• Parco Italia – vision, Italy, 2019 – ongoing
• Norcia multipurpose and civil protection center - Norcia, Italy, 2018
• Polo del gusto di Amatrice – Amatrice, Italy, 2018
• Palazzo Verde – vertical forest, Antwerp, Belgio, 2018 – 2021
• Bosconavigli – Milan, Italy, 2018-ongoing
• Redevelopment of Matera Central Station – Matera, Italy, 2018
• Trudo Vertical Forest – the building applies the Vertical Forest model to social housing for the first time. All in all, the Trudo Vertical Forest residential tower houses no less than 135 trees of various species, spread over an elevation of 75 metres, to which is added about 5.200 smaller shrubs and plants and other vegetation, for a total of about 8.500 plants, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 2017– 2021
• Room 5: Raphael's Cardboard Room – set-up, Biblioteca Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Italy, 2017 – 19
• Easyhome Huanggang Vertical Forest City Complex – vertical forest, Huanggang, Hubei, China, 2017 – 2021
• Three New Schools for Tirana – Tirana, Albania, 2017 – ongoing
• Wonderwoods Vertical Forest – vertical forest, Utrecht, Paesi Bassi, 2017 – ongoing
• Shanghai Hecheng Renovation – offices, Shanghai, Cina, 2017
• Nanjing Vertical Forest – vertical forests, 200 and 107m, Nanjing, Cina, 2016 – ongoing
• Ca’ delle Alzaie, Treviso, Italy, 2016
• La Torre dei Cedri – vertical forest, 117m, Chavannes-Prés-Renens, Lausanne, Svizzera, 2015 – ongoing

• 
  Trudo Vertical Forest in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
• 
  Bosco Verticale, Milan

Bibliography

• A vertical forest. Corraini Edizioni, Mantova, 2015.
• Fare di più con meno. Il Saggiatore, Milan, 2012
• Biomilano. Glossary of Ideas for a Metropolis based around Bio-Diversity. Corraini, Mantova, 2011.
• Anticittà. Laterza, Bari, 2011.
• Effetto Maddalena. Maddalena Effect. Rizzoli, Milano, 2010.
• Cronache dell’abitare. Mondadori, Milano, 2007.
• Il territorio che cambia. Associazione Interessi Metropolitani 1993, con Arturo Lanzani e Edoardo Marini.
• Mutations . Actar, Barcelona 2000, with Rem Koolhaas, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Sandford Kwinter
• USE Uncertain States of Europe. Skirà, Milan, 2002.

External links

• Stefano Boeri
• Stefano Boeri Architetti
• Festarch