From Metanopoli to Zen 2: 10 weird place names explained

The area takes its name from an old farmhouse demolished in 1920 that stood along the Seveso River, roughly on the site of the current Via della Maggiolina. The district still preserves some important architecture, including two of the eight igloo houses designed by Mario Cavallè between the Villaggio dei Giornalisti and the Maggiolina district in 1946, with their characteristic vaulted construction system of perforated bricks arranged in converging lozenges (hence the nickname “pumpkin houses”) and the rationalist Villa Figini designed by Luigi Figini as his own home in 1935.

The name of the Garbatella district, founded in 1920 as a garden-city for factory workers along the Via Ostiense, has unclear origins: whether it was due to the pleasantness of the site, to a type of vine cultivation (“a garbata”) or to a legendary and friendly local hostess, the district that became popular after the Second World War still has that feeling of “village” where the rural character dialogues with various architectural influences, including the so-called Roman Baroque introduced by Gustavo Giovannoni. The district has been a favourite backdrop for literary and cinematic narrations, from Pasolini, to Nanni Moretti, to “I Cesaroni” (a TV series, Ed.).  

The experimental district, designed by a team headed by Piero Bottoni, was conceived as part of the eighth Milan Triennale held in 1947. With housing, services, infrastructures and public spaces regulated by an accurate urban design, the district captured all the enthusiasm of post-war reconstruction and translated into a lexicon inspired as much by the work of Le Corbusier as by the concept of the garden city. At its heart lies Monte Stella, an artificial hill made up of the rubble of all the buildings destroyed in the bombing of the city.

The district of S. Donato Milanese designed by ENI for its workers was conceived, following Mario Bacciocchi masterplan, as an ideal city with different buildings to guarantee a balanced mix between work and life: the management centre, with the central offices of the group companies, the scientific district with the laboratories, the industrial district with the workshops and warehouses, the motel for truck drivers and motorists, the service and filling station and the residential district with the employees' homes, the church and sports facilities. Today it has about 6 000 inhabitants and is a listed urban district.

After the displacement in 1952 from the Sassi of Matera of the inhabitants, who lived here in extreme poverty, the city had to tackle a massive exodus by constructing working-class neighbourhoods suitable for the relocation of about 2/3 of the population. Among these places, purposely designed with the aim of preserving the historical values of social life and proximity on which the popular society of the time was based, there is Borgo La Martella, designed by Ludovico Quaroni and Adriano Olivetti, which provided housing and community services (including a church). It is said that the first inhabitants who settled there were given a cow and a cart with rubber wheels, perhaps to make the transition from the rural environment to the urban one more acceptable.

The Zona Espansione Nord (ZEN) district, consisting entirely of social housing buildings, is divided into two housing areas commonly referred to as “ZEN 1” and “ZEN 2”, the latter characterised by architectural structures known as “insulae”. The urban area is plagued by consolidated problems of environmental and social degradation. Recently, participatory processes have been initiated between the university, the municipality and residents to improve services and reduce crime.

In the area of a convent on the Umbrian hills, the Milanese architect Tomaso Buzzi has given life to his "ideal city": a true eschatological allegory of existence narrated through the hermetic language of 18th century Freemasonry. The complex is, as the architect defined it, "an anthology in stone", a great theatrical scenography that legitimizes the recovery of elements of the past: from Hadrian’s Villa to the buildings of the Acropolis, to the Wood of Bomarzo. The design vision implies an initiatory path that unravels among the buildings and represents a confrontation with the Unconscious, according to the model developed by Jung and based on archetypal figures.

Stemming from the vision of Edmondo Rossoni, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry in the 1930s on the basis of the model of the “new towns” built between the two wars, Tresigallo is a “capital” of Italian rationalism: rigorous buildings, turrets, marble porticoes, cylinders, cones, parallelepipeds, and arches intact over time give back the metaphysical and still unchanged atmosphere of an ideal town born “at the drawing board”.

The directional district, designed according to Kenzō Tange's masterplan on a disused industrial site, is characterised by a wide central axis, below which the car parks are arranged, and along which squares and skyscrapers are distributed. The district, inspired by Le Corbusier’s work, represents one of the first successful experiments in the clear separation of car and pedestrian traffic. The construction of the skyscrapers was entrusted to internationally renowned architects, including Renzo Piano (Olivetti Building), Massimo Pica Ciamarra (the two ENEL Towers) and Nicola Pagliara (Banco di Napoli Towers and Edilres Building). The Telecom Italia Tower, at 129 metres high, is one of the tallest buildings in Italy.