The rusticated blocks of the basement imitate a natural rocky shape, while the rest of the decorations are inspired by 18th century stuccos.

The palace was built for entrepreneur Ermengildo Castiglioni, who chose architect Giuseppe Sommaruga because of his anticonventional solutions.

The most provocative element of the original design turned out to be a couple of nude female statues, by Ernesto Bazzaro, decorating the facade; these raised such turmoil that the local newspaper Guerin Meschino published a series of satyrical illustrations on them, and the Milanese population renamed the palace "Cà di ciapp" (in Milanese, "house of buttocks").

The statues, that were intended to represent "Peace" and "Industry", were eventually removed and are now used as decorations of another Milanese palace also by Sommaruga, the Villa Romeo Faccanoni on Via Michelangelo Buonarroti #48.

In 1967 the Castiglioni family sold the building to the Union of Commerce because of high costs of maintenance and a tax to finance the construction of the subway.