Portello is a district ("

quartiere A (; plural: ) is a territorial subdivision of certain Italian towns. The word derives from (‘fourth’) and was thus properly used only for towns divided into four neighborhoods by the two main roads. It has been later used as a synonymous ...

") of

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, part of the Zone 8 administrative division of the city, located north-west of the centre. It is best known as a car-manufacturing area, as it used to house facilities of Alfa Romeo (now dismissed),

Darracq A Darracq and Company Limited owned a French manufacturer of motor vehicles and aero engines in Suresnes, near Paris. The French enterprise, known at first as A. Darracq et Cie, was founded in 1896 by Alexandre Darracq after he sold his Gladi ...

Citroën Citroën () is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded in March 1919 by André Citroën. Citroën is owned by Stellantis since 2021 and previously was part of the PSA Group after Peugeot acquired ...

, and

Fiat Fiat Automobiles S.p.A. (, , ; originally FIAT, it, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino, lit=Italian Automobiles Factory of Turin) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, formerly part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and since 2021 a subsidiary ...

. The district also includes one of the major

shopping malls A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...

in north-western Milan. It is crossed by the Circonvallazione

ring road A ring road (also known as circular road, beltline, beltway, circumferential (high)way, loop, bypass or orbital) is a road or a series of connected roads encircling a town, city, or country. The most common purpose of a ring road is to assist i ...

. Portello is adjacent to the new CityLife district.

History

Portello was one of the major urban requalification process in Milan, as the former Alfa Romeo area (385,000 m²) is now being restructured. The project includes a major park called Parco VittoriaParco Vittoria
(in Italian) and what will become the largest plaza in Milan
Portello, la Milano dei grandi spazi
' (in Italian) (20,000 m²),
Al Portello la piazza più grande di Milano
' (in Italian) as well as commercial, service and housing infrastructures. The name of the district comes from the "Strada del Portello" (Portello road), an ancient rural road that used to connect Milan to

Rho Rho (uppercase Ρ, lowercase ρ or ; el, ρο or el, ρω, label=none) is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 100. It is derived from Phoenician letter res . Its uppercase form uses the sa ...

, and that was later replaced by the new Strada del Sempione ("Simplon Road") leading to the

Simplon Pass The Simplon Pass (french: Col du Simplon; german: Simplonpass; it, Passo del Sempione, Lombard: ''Pass del Sempiün'') () is a high mountain pass between the Pennine Alps and the Lepontine Alps in Switzerland. It connects Brig in the canton of ...

; the old Portello road is now known as "Via Traiano". In turn, the road was named after the Portello

city gate A city gate is a gate which is, or was, set within a city wall. It is a type of fortified gateway. Uses City gates were traditionally built to provide a point of controlled access to and departure from a walled city for people, vehicles, goods ...

, that was part of the city walls and that was located in the surroundings of the modern Cadorna railway station.

Parco Vittoria

The design of Parco Vittoria, by architects

Charles Jencks Charles Alexander Jencks (21 June 1939 – 13 October 2019) was an American cultural theorist, landscape designer, architectural historian, and co-founder of the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres. He published over thirty books and became famous i ...

and Andreas Kipar, includes several unusual elements, and it is based on the general theme of

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

. It will comprise a large round lake, with a strip-shaped promontory that will allow pedestrians to walk to the center of the lake itself. A helix shaped hill (called "The Spiral of Time") will provide a panoramic view of the city; an artistic representation of the double DNA helix will be placed on top of the hill. Both the lake and the hill will be part of a park section called "Time Garden", partitioned into three areas dedicated to

prehistory Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

and present times.

Grand Prix racing

The district hosted a city circuit in which

1947 Italian Grand Prix The 1947 Italian Grand Prix was a Grand Prix motor race held in Portello district on 7 September 1947. Entries Classification Qualifying Race References :''Session results taken from:'' # # # Italian Grand Prix Italian Grand Pri ...

was held.

Footnotes

{{Districts of Milan Districts of Milan

History

Parco Vittoria

Grand Prix racing

See also

Footnotes