Boeri: "A violent smear campaign against me. Warnings and homeless people, that's what I said in the messages."

"I love this city. I'm an architect, not a 'concrete developer.' And I have faith in the work of the judiciary." Stefano Boeri has chosen his social media channels to share his version of events. He explains those "fragments of decontextualized private messages" in the files of the new major investigation into urban planning , following the previous investigations into the BEIC and Bosconavigli. These files contain his conversations, especially those with Mayor Beppe Sala, which have become the subject of the investigation. The architect and president of the Triennale tries to dispute these on several points. Boeri is under investigation (for the third time) in the new investigation, now for undue inducement to give or promise utilities, in conjunction with former councilor Tancredi, builder Manfredi Catella, and the then president of the Landscape Commission, Giuseppe Marinoni. Boeri, who designed the Pirellino on behalf of builder Catella, allegedly exerted pressure to "influence" the Landscape Commission and push it, after two rejections, to issue a favorable opinion.

"In recent days, I have been the target of a vicious defamatory campaign, particularly due to the dissemination of a series of decontextualized fragments of my private messages, which were passed on to the media before being shared with my lawyers and myself. This is a regrettable situation, not unheard of in Italy, which, in the wake of a media-driven trial, turns those who, as in my case, are simply involved in a preliminary investigation into the crimes of wrongdoing," Boeri writes. He continues: "I remain convinced that the only venue for any judicial proceeding should be the Court. For this reason, in recent days, I have decided not to release any statements or interviews, allowing my lawyers, out of respect for the work of the judiciary, the time necessary to prepare a solid defense. I have, however, realized that my silence has left room for too much doubt and malicious interpretation. In many media outlets, fragments of my messages have been published and "assembled" together in a specious manner, without any reference to the context in which they were formulated, thus suggesting a completely distorted image of my professional and personal life."

Boeri's warning to Sala about the Pirelli skyscraper

The "warning" I expressed in a message to the mayor of Milan was not a threat, but rather a serious alarm over the actions of the City's Landscape Commission, which continued to reject our "Torre Botanica" project, citing reasons that had nothing to do with the Commission's assigned responsibilities. I would add that our project for Via Pirelli 39, after a year of meetings and heated discussions, was approved by the Commission only after the painful abandonment of the original idea for the "Torre Botanica" (an experimental and advanced architecture that I held dear and which I believe would have brought Milan significant international recognition) and the presentation of a substantially different project. The reference is to the message dated June 21, 2023 , in which the architect writes to the mayor: "Hi Beppe. Sorry to bother you on a topic that concerns me as a professor. I really didn't want to do it, but tomorrow I have a meeting with the Landscape Commission after two rejections of the Porta Nuova Vertical Forest Project. I spoke about it at length with Giancarlo, Mario, and Malangone. Marinoni is wrong to ask us for changes that aren't within the commission's remit. And not just with us. If he insists, they risk a split and an appeal to the Regional Administrative Court, and Catella making headlines. I suggested postponing the conferral. Sorry, the last thing to do is cause you problems, but take this as a warning for tomorrow. Bye." A couple of hours later, Sala's reply arrives: "They tell me it's not just the President. Obviously, I know what they're telling me. And I have to trust Giancarlo's (councilor Tancredi's) judgment. In any case, I'll review it calmly tomorrow morning."

It was 2018 when Boeri wrote to Sala: “If I may, we should tell Majorino (then Councilor for Social Policies in the first Sala administration, ed.) that the more we treat the homeless with kid gloves, the more they arrive. There is a constant migration to Milan, even Genoa is emptying…” Boeri now explains: “What was originally a private communication of a malicious joke circulating at the time about the – meritorious – work of the then Department of Social Policies has become, taken out of context, my opinion on the conditions of absolute poverty that, unfortunately, have been present in central Milan for years. It is truly paradoxical and unacceptable to be accused of contempt for a survival condition, that of the homeless in Milan, in which I have been actively involved for years as a citizen and as an architect. And it is sad that there are those who have exploited this misunderstanding to carve out a bit of space for themselves in the media.”

Boeri: "My reputation has been damaged."

The outburst on social media continues: "These and many other improper montages of fragments of my sentences, taken from private conversations, have profoundly damaged my public reputation and damaged the professional reputation of my firm and my collaborators. A genuine damage that none of them deserve. Fortunately for me, also thanks to my profession as an architect, what most represents me in the cities where I have worked is something physical, tangible, exposed to the view and judgment of all citizens.

This is also happening in Milan, where for a lifetime, as an architect, professor, council member, and president of a cultural institution, I have tirelessly proposed my ideas for a greener and more inclusive city. And indeed, despite my mistakes and uncertainties, what I have managed to achieve, always alongside excellent colleagues and collaborators, is there for all to see. In Milan, truth be told, most of my proposals have foundered—from the 2007 Metrobosco to the idea of a "Green River" on the railway yards, to the Stadio-Bosco and the biodiversity gardens in the former San Siro Hippodrome, to new architectural experiments like the Torre Botanica (which I hope to realize elsewhere soon). But the works I've completed in recent years as an architect—the Expo masterplan, the Bosco Verticale, the trees planted by ForestaMi, the green facades on public housing in Monza, the new Policlinico hospital with its roof garden—or as a cultural operator (the decision to create a Pietà Rondanini Museum at the Sforza Castle, the post-Covid Supersalone, the renovated Triennale) are, I truly believe, an identity card for our work and our love for a more beautiful, green, attractive, and inclusive Milan. Concrete facts, exposed to everyone's free judgment.

There's no point in hiding the fact that we're witnessing a formidable smear campaign against a city that, if it's currently experiencing a difficult transition (for years I've been warning of the risk that Milan could become a metropolis of "affluent elderly people"), is because it has managed to position itself among the most attractive international metropolises not only for financial investment, but also for its cultural projects, its healthcare system, its mobility infrastructure, and its universities.