Palazzo Italia in Milan

Palazzo Italia in Milan is made from a special air-purifying award-winning cement, designed to clear the air.

Palazzo Italia by Italian architectural firm Nemesi & Partners, created from a special air-purifying cement by Italcementi, debuted at the 2015 World’s Fair in Milan.

Images credit Nemesi & Partners

The facade of the unique pavilion, built by a mixture of cement and titanium dioxide, ‘captures nitrogen-oxide pollution and converts it into a harmless salt, that rinses off the walls when it rains.’

Palazzo Italia in Milan

According to the architects, the creative material could also been used to highways, sidewalks, or other places with heavy pollution.

Architect Michele Molè, said:

“We wanted the building to be an osmotic organism, like a tree that breathes in carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen.

The overall concept of the architectural design of the Italian Pavilion is that of an urban forest in which the building, through its skin and its volumetric arrangement, takes on the features of an architectural landscape. The branching pattern of the external cladding of Palazzo Italia coherently interprets the theme of the tree of life, inserting it in the form of a petrified forest.”

Palazzo Italia in Milan

via popsci