The event is sold out.
Does Milan have a historic center? It's hard to say, because the fascist-era zoning plans and the bombs of the Second World War wiped out many ancient places and architectures. Right in the shapeless voids left by the unfinished urban visions of the twenty-year fascist regime and the wartime destruction, in the 1950s, a new and more prosperous Milan "rose again," as is often said with all the emphasis of the twentieth century. This rebirth was contributed to by the most important local designers of the time, all variously interested in materializing Milanese "modernity," but also in establishing a dialogue with history. This itinerary winds through the heart of the city center and intercepts some emblematic architectures of a crucial moment in the construction of twentieth-century Milan.
From Piazza San Babila, it traverses Corso Europa, a fascist redevelopment completed in the post-war period, to observe the office buildings by Vico Magistretti (1955-1957) and Luigi Caccia Dominioni (1959). These are two original and high-quality interpretations of the curtain wall theme, the innovative self-supporting glass facade that spreads from American downtowns to the world as the most typical representation of corporate efficiency. A short detour towards Corso di Porta Vittoria intersects Biblioteca Sormani, a masterpiece by Arrigo Arrighetti, who was long in charge of the municipal Technical Office. Between 1949 and 1956, Arrighetti intervened on the ancient Palazzo Sormani, heavily bombed, to turn it into the headquarters of Milan's most important public library. In particular, he entirely reconstructed the east wing, an abstract and refined volume that dialogues with the preexistence not by imitation, but by evoking its proportions
This itinerary winds through the heart of the city center and intercepts some emblematic architectures of a crucial moment in the construction of twentieth-century Milan.
The itinerary concludes in Piazza Velasca, where the cultured and super-rationalist residential and office buildings by Asnago Vender frame the famous Tower of the BBPR group. It is a very modern building – a towering 106 meters – but it has the silhouette of the Filarete tower at the Sforzesco Castle, and its cladding panels have the pinkish tones of the Duomo marbles. Not by chance, the Velasca Tower scandalized and then made history throughout the Western world, as an innovative proposal to reconcile references to tradition and urban context, on the one hand, with modern typologies and programs, on the other.
The tour will be guided by Alessandro Benetti, a historian and collaborator of Domus, currently a post-doc at the Department of Architecture and Design of the Polytechnic University of Turin. Benetti has contributed to numerous guides on modern architecture in Milan and has led a series of itineraries on the same themes promoted by the Foundation of the Order of Architects.
Stage 1: A fragment of downtown from the 1950s
Corso Europa
• Vico Magistretti, Office Building, 1955-1957
• Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Building for shops and offices, 1959
Stage 2: Welfare and architectural quality
Via Francesco Sforza corner Corso di Porta Vittoria
• Arrigo Arrighetti, Restoration-reconstruction of Palazzo Sormani and conversion into a public library
Stage 3: Modernity and history
Piazza Velasca
• Asnago Vender, Office and residential buildings, 1939-1950
• BBPR, Velasca Tower, 1951-1958
Opening image: Photo nikitamaykov via AdobeStock