Project management and project finance in Milan “Galleria Vittorio Emanuele” (1878) and “Nuova Fiera” (2005): unexpected analogies across one and half century

In 1867 the opening of the biggest shopping mall in the world - the “Galleria Vittorio Emanuale”- celebrated the role of the city of Milan as industrial capital of the new Italian kingdom just unified. To make this ambitious project possible, an unusual project financing scheme was adopted and Giuseppe Mengoni, the architect of the mall, designed for himself the part of Project manager in an original and controversial manner. One and half century later, to emphasize its role of Italian economic driver, Milan built the largest fairground worldwide – the “Nuova Fiera”- applying again a project management scheme totally new for Italy, based on an very particular version of a “general contractor” model. Despite the large time gap, some surprising analogies emerge from the comparison between these two big projects, especially regarding the influence of political and financial constraints and its effects not only on the project management, but also on the technical decisions as well as on the whole process structure and issues. The study will provide a comparison based on a deep analysis of both cases, with special attention to the role played by the client, the constraints stepped, the strengths and weaknesses appeared. In addition, the lesson learned from these experiences will summarized gathering some best and bad practices emerging as permanent element from the studied processes.