020415 ctc

On April 14 1994, the last voices echoed around the great trading floor housed within Palazzo Mezzanotte - the historic home of the Stock Exchange - bringing to an end stock exchange trading by "open-outcry" and introducing the radically different electronic trading system.

Exactly eight years later, Borsa Italiana and Piazza Affari Gestione e Servizi, a wholly owned Borsa Italiana subsidiary, have built for the financial community the new Congress and Training Centre housed within Palazzo Mezzanotte in Milan, in premises that can accommodate more than 600 people on the old Trading Floor, the three conference halls and the training room in the basement area. The former Trading Floor now features an auditorium that can be structured differently according to the needs of the various organisers and a significant area around the room suitable for locating multimedia communications system and where exhibitions can be held or people can congregate.

The project to assign a new functional role to the palazzo, directed by the architect Alfonso Mercurio, uses a technological steel and glass structure as the keynote feature that, leaving the existing architectural features of the building intact, separates the public areas from the Borsa Italiana offices thereby facilitating both the technological and sound management of the Congress and Training Centre and the normal use of the offices for Exchange business.

The new venue was designed for operational flexibility. The facilities are therefore multi-purpose and are suitable for all kinds of events such as conferences, road-shows, budget approval shareholder assemblies, analyst presentations, press conferences and exhibitions.

The perimeter walls of the palazzo that were found to date back to the Roman period, recovered during the refurbishment and enhanced by a glass structure that displays them perfectly, have been made part of the Borsa Italiana Museum. By taking the visitor through the past, present and future of the Exchange, the museum will put the historical heritage of the Exchange into the wider context of the history and art of the city of Milan and of the nation as a whole.

The central location of the building and the range of facilities with which it has been equipped, will make the Palazzo Mezzanotte Congress and Training Centre an ideal reference point for the business community.

Milan, April 15, 2002.