A Villa Between Cyberpunk and Listening Bar: co.arch studio Reimagines a Forgotten Milanese Landmark

Breathing New Life into a Forgotten Villa

  The project, spearheaded by RealStep as part of a larger regeneration initiative, entrusted the creative direction to co.arch studio, led by architects Andrea Pezzoli and Giulia Urciuoli. Their challenge: to preserve the villa’s historic soul while infusing it with a bold, cyberpunk-inspired identity that resonates with the district’s dynamic new spirit. 

In the heart of Milan’s rapidly transforming Certosa District, where industrial past meets the city’s creative future, a historic villa has found a new voice. Once a slaughterhouse, later a squat, and for decades a forgotten fragment of the urban fabric, the early 20th-century building has been reborn as Club Giovanile Milano — a hybrid space that merges a restaurant, listening bar, and live music venue.

Cyberpunk Meets Heritage

The architects approached the renovation not as an act of erasure, but of revelation. The villa’s original bones — cement tiles, stuccoes, and period lettering — were meticulously restored, serving as tactile reminders of its layered history. Against this preserved backdrop, exposed building systems streak across ceilings and walls like metallic veins, a deliberate move that injects a Dadaist, industrial energy into the interiors.

References to Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil”, Katsuhiro Otomo’s “Akira”, and other retro-futuristic dystopias guided the visual language. The Genuit steel ducts, left bare, transcend their technical role to become sculptural design elements — reflective conduits that disrupt and dialogue with rough plaster and aged surfaces. The result is a tangible collision between eras, where analog memory and digital imagination coexist in harmony.

Two Souls, One Stage

Inside, the villa unfolds as a dual experience — part intimate dining room, part sonic laboratory. Two expansive halls host live performances, DJ sets, and listening sessions, designed with acoustic precision by Labirinti Acustici.

The interiors, developed in collaboration with Ots – Off the Shelf, balance technical functionality with expressive freedom. By day, the space operates as a relaxed restaurant and listening bar; by night, it transforms into a vibrant performance hub, pulsating with neon light and sound.

Every design decision serves the rhythm of transformation — from the bespoke lighting fixtures by Artemide and Egoluce to the custom furniture that echoes both the villa’s domestic origins and its new, futuristic identity.

Revealing the Past, Layering the Present

Externally, co.arch studio embraced a philosophy of “revealed architecture.” Decades of paint and plaster were stripped away to uncover decorative frames, cornices, and even a faded inscription: “SUINI DA MACELLO” (“pigs for slaughter”). Instead of concealing this history, the architects turned it into a poetic statement — a scar that speaks of time and transformation.

The villa’s new “skin” reflects its internal duality: raw and refined, nostalgic and experimental. It becomes a living palimpsest, where traces of the past coexist with the luminous energy of the present.

Contemporary Grafts and Urban Dialogue

Two strategic interventions redefine the façade and connect the building to the city. A large street-facing window opens the villa to its urban context, blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior while framing the glowing neon signage of Club Giovanile Milano.

An external staircase in steel and perforated sheet metal acts as a functional sculpture, linking floors and extending into a terrace for outdoor performances and gatherings. These additions — unapologetically contemporary — amplify the building’s layered narrative, positioning it as both heritage and statement piece within the evolving Certosa landscape.

A Villa Against the Current

Set near La Forgiatura, another RealStep redevelopment known for its sleek modernism, Club Giovanile Milano stands deliberately apart. Where La Forgiatura symbolizes the polished face of innovation, this villa embraces the beauty of imperfection and contradiction.

It feels almost like a cinematic anomaly — a 1930s relic crash-landed in a futuristic cityscape, refusing assimilation. Instead, it amplifies its difference, proving that authenticity and experimentation can coexist within the same architectural gesture.

The Architecture of Atmosphere

Ultimately, co.arch studio’s “A Villa Between Cyberpunk and Listening Bar” is less about form and more about atmosphere. It’s a project that celebrates memory through modernity, and urban grit through creative reimagination.

All photographs are works of Simone Bossi