At the foot of the Piazza Cordusio, where Milan's financial district converges with the pedestrian approach to the Duomo, a Liberty-style palazzo originally built in 1901 for the Assicurazioni Generali insurance company has been transformed into Palazzo Cordusio Gran Meliá. The building's exterior — a copper-domed corner tower, carved stone pilasters, and a mosaic-filled arch at the piano nobile — was designed by Giovanni Brocca and carries the muscular civic ambition of turn-of-the-century Milan. Its illuminated facade at night, trams streaking past in long exposure, still projects the authority of a building meant to signal institutional permanence rather than hospitality. Inside, the interiors take a different position, trading the palazzo's ornate stone grammar for a contemporary Milanese sensibility. Guest rooms are fitted with wide-plank walnut flooring, walnut-panelled headboard walls trimmed in brushed brass, and backlit artwork panels in verdigris and turquoise ceramic relief — a palette that acknowledges the building's heritage without imitating it. The ground-floor bar moves further still, with a vaulted timber-slat ceiling arching over a terrazzo floor, a continuous curved tan leather sectional sofa, and retro dome pendant lighting that places the room somewhere between 1970s Italian rationalism and current Milanese aperitivo culture. Above it all, a rooftop terrace furnished with rattan lounge chairs and marble-topped side tables frames the Duomo's spires directly over the cast-iron balustrade — the building earning its position in the city all over again.

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