Allianz Cloud

The Allianz Cloud sits in Milan, a sports and entertainment arena where volleyball, basketball, concerts and conferences all share the same floor. It holds 5,347 spectators, and its story reaches back to 1961, when it first opened as the PalaLido and became a fixture of the city's sporting life. For nearly thirty years it was the home court of Olimpia Milano, until the basketball club moved across town to the Mediolanum Forum.

What you see today is the product of a thorough rebuild. Work began in 2010, with the project drawn up by Teco+Partners from Bologna, and after several delays the arena reopened in June 2019 under its new name, taken from a sponsorship agreement with the Allianz Group. The redesign shows on the outside in a facade of curved corrugated metal, while the old barrel roof gave way to a flatter steel lattice that carries a photovoltaic system, so the building generates some of its own power. Inside, the seats run in varying shades of blue, and an octagonal video cube hangs from the ceiling to keep every spectator in view of the action.

The detail that stays with you is the lighting: an LED system that can wash the whole hall in different colours, so the same room that hosts a volleyball match can turn itself into a concert stage. An arena that began in the sixties, and now glows in whatever colour the evening calls for, is a fitting piece of a city that has always mixed the old with the new.