Airport hotels are rarely, if ever, listed in travel guides as “worth a visit.” Typically built on formulaic models, they're geared to captive travelers and conference planners in need of convenient accommodations. But in 2006, SEA, the Milan Airport Authority, collaborated with Italian builder Degennaro Group (DEC) and Starwood Hotels and Resorts to develop a singular destination at the city's Malpensa Airport that not only redefines the genre through architecture, but changes the face of an increasingly important transportation hub.
Part of a greater Malpensa-improvement initiative, SEA's invited competition challenged integrated groups of developers, operators, and architects to devise a building plan that would hide the airport's Terminal 1 from the adjacent highway. That 1998 structure, designed by the authority's technical office, has interiors by the late Milanese architect Ettore Sottsass but lacks the bravura of Madrid-Barajas or Beijing.
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