la scala’s workshops move toward lambrate

In Milan’s Lambrate district, where the former Innocenti factory once fed the streets with Lambretta scooters, Teatro alla Scala is preparing Magnifica Fabbrica as a new kind of backstage.

The project gathers the theater’s workshops, rehearsal rooms, storage spaces, and public routes into a large production complex beside the expanding Parco della Lambretta, turning an industrial site into a place where the making of theater can be seen.

Designed by Madrid-based studio FRPO, WALK Architecture & Landscape, and locally-based firm SD Partners, the project won the international competition launched by the Municipality of Milan and Fondazione Teatro alla Scala.

Its purpose is practical at first glance, giving La Scala room for the labor that supports its opera and ballet productions, yet the proposal also treats those activities as part of the city’s cultural fabric. Instead of keeping scenery, costumes, and props behind the curtain, the renovated building will open a controlled view into the work that usually stays backstage.

visualizations courtesy SD Partners

a new production house for teatro alla scala

Across more than 66,000 square meters of built area outside Milan, the FRPO-designed Magnifica Fabbrica brings together spaces for scenography, tailoring, stage equipment, dressing rooms, rehearsals, warehouses, and deposits.

The layout follows the demands of theater production, where scale and timing shape the architecture as much as atmosphere does. Large volumes hold sets and containers, while more precise rooms support the skilled work of costume makers, technicians, and performers moving through different phases of preparation.

At the head of the complex, the Piazza della Torre dell’Acqua introduces the public dimension of the project.

From here, a visitor route called the Anello circles through the building and gives access to the world behind the stage. The path is conceived as a safe viewing system, allowing people to follow the production chain without disrupting it, with workshops and storage areas becoming part of an expanded cultural experience.

Magnifica Fabbrica brings Teatro alla Scala’s production spaces to Milan’s Lambrate district

parco della lambretta expands around the factory

Beyond the building, Magnifica Fabbrica extends into the landscape with the expanding of Milan’s Parco della Lambretta.

The park is planned as part of the transformation of the former Innocenti area, where the Palazzo di Cristallo remains as a large industrial trace. Once tied to the production of millions of Lambrettas, the structure is set to become a green factory for biodiversity, placing the site’s manufacturing history in contact with a new public landscape.

Water gives the park its main organizing logic. Drawing from Milan’s agricultural heritage, the design works with channels, planted edges, pedestrian paths, and rows of trees to shape a landscape that also performs as infrastructure.

The Giardini dell’Acqua connect the park and the factory through a natural phytoremediation system, using planting and water cycles as part of the site’s environmental strategy.

the project occupies the former Innocenti factory area beside Parco della Lambretta

energy, ground water, and a translucent roof

Milan’s Magnifica Fabbrica is planned as a Zero Energy Building, producing more power than it consumes through a 3,600 kW photovoltaic system set across its translucent roof.

The roof gives the vast complex a lighter presence while supporting the energy demands of a building that must serve workshops, rehearsals, and storage at an urban scale. Its technical performance sits close to the architecture, visible in the way the project turns the surface above the factory into an active part of its operation.

A large open-loop geothermal system adds another layer to the environmental plan and contributes to the purification of groundwater.

These systems place the theatre’s new production spaces within a broader discussion about cultural infrastructure in Milan, where performance venues can no longer be understood only through the auditorium. In Lambrate, the stage stretches outward into logistics, energy, landscape, and public space.

FRPO, WALK Architecture & Landscape, and SD Partners design the winning competition proposal

from backstage labor to civic space

What gives the project its charge is the way it treats theatre as a process before it becomes an event.

La Scala’s public image is usually tied to the historic opera house near Piazza della Scala, yet its productions depend on a separate world of making, moving, repairing, testing, and storing. The Magnifica Fabbrica brings that world into view, giving space to the people and materials that shape a performance long before the curtain rises.

As Milan continues to transform former industrial areas, the project reads as part of a larger shift in how cultural buildings meet the city.

the complex gathers workshops, rehearsal rooms, storage spaces, and public visitor routes