FIGINI-POLLINI | VIA HARAR | MILANO book 1 history 2018

20th Century Residential Legacies: Figini & Pollini’s Building in Quartiere Harar-Dessiè Book I - History

Politecnico di Milano School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Master in Architecture - Built Environment - Interiors Architectural Preservation Studio Academic Year 2017-2018 Professors: Andrea Canziani, Andrea Adami Professors assistants: Ileana Castelli, Leonardo Calvi, Chiara Ligi, Martina Rosa, Matt Savio

Team 1 Eliza Colunga Edwin James Jacob Westerman

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20th Century Residential Legacies Figini & Pollini’s Building in Quartiere Harar-Dessiè Book I - History

C O N T E N T S

Timeline Italy Since World War II The Economic Miracle Architecture in Italy under European Fascism The Dynamic Duo Luigi Figini Gino Pollini Gio Ponti Study of Materials Used by Figini and Pollini INA-Casa Design Manuals Quartiere Harar-Dessiè Building A Design Iteration Master Plan Business Proposals Bibliography

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Social Housing in Italy

National legislation creats an Institute for Working Class Housing (Istituto per le Case Populari or ICP).

The Rome City Council creates an autonomous Rome Institute of Working Class Housing (Istituto Autonomo per le Case Populare or IACP).

A single set of regulations for ICAP organizations is passed.

National Legislation is passed creating Istituto Nazionale per le Case deli impiegati dello Stato (INCIS), a program to build housing for government workers.

Novecento movement begins Adolf Loos publishes his essay "Ornament and Crime".

Filippo Marinetti publishes the first futurist manifiesto in the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro The Manifiesto of Futurist Architecture is published De Stijl movement founded in the Netherlands.

The Fascist Party is founded.

Mussolini becomes Prime Minister.

The Fascist Dictatorship begins.

Gruppo 7 is created.

Gruppo 7 publishes their four manifestoes on Rationalist Architecture.

Launch of architectural magazines Casabella and Domus.

Villa Savoye designed by Le Corbusier.

CIAM I held in La Sarraz.

Barcelona Pavilion designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution in Rome.

Archittetura Rurale exhibition at the Milan Triennale celebrates the vernacular and Italian roots of modern architecture.

CIAM IV held abroad a cruise ship from Marseilles to Athens.

The Bauhaus closes under Nazi pressure.

International Events in Architecture and Politics

Racial Laws are passed in Italy.

World War II begins.

Italy invades Ethiopia.

The World's Fair in New York includes the Finnish Pavilion by Alvar Aalto and the Brazilian Pavilion by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer.

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1940

1939

1938

1937

1936

1935

1934

1933

1932

1931

1930

1929

1928

1927

1926

1925

1924

1923

1922

1921

1920

1919

1918

1917

1916

1915

1914

1913

1912

1911

1910

1909

1908

1907

1906

1905

1904

1903

1902

1901

1900

Mussolini announces a new national workers’ housing campaign.

Social Housing and in Italy

February 28: Fanfani plan known as INA-Casa is signed into law for the first seven-year period (1949-1955).

Aminitore Fanfani is appointed Minister of Labor and Social Security. Fanfani and Annetto Puggioni meet to draft the outlines of what will become the INA-Casa plan.

October: The first INA-Casa design manual “Suggestions, Standards, and Schemes for the Elaboration and Presentation of Designs: The Competition Announcement” is published.

The Tupini plan to fund building cooperatives is passed.

The INA-Casa plan is debated before the Labor Commission.

The second design manual “Suggestions, Examples, and Standards for Urban Design: Typical Projects” is published.

The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration housing program, UNRRA-CASA, is created to provide housing for homeless with international funds.

Quartiere Harar-Dessié is projected and is finished in 1955.

The tenth Milan Triennale is focused on the home and schemes of model INA-Casa interior among other working-class homes.

The second settenio of INA-Casa begins.

Italy enters World War II Mussolini is deposed.

Marshal Badoglio is appointed Prime Minister.

The Allies land in Sicily.

An armistice is signed by Italy and the Allies.

The Association for Organic Architecture, led

by Bruno Zevi is founded in Rome.

The Germans are defeated in Italy; Mussolini is captured and executed by Partisans.

World War II ends.

December: The Cristian Democrat Alcide De Gaspari becomes Prime Minister.

Expo 67 in Montreal features the American pavilion, a geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller, and the Habitat 67 housing complex designed by Moshe Safdie.

May: King Victor Emmanuel III finally formally abdicated.

June: Referendum decided in favour of a republic by 54 percent of the votes cast.

The Interbau 57 exposition in Berlin features structures by Alvar Aalto, Walter Gropius and his The Architects' Collaborative (TAC), and an unité by Le Corbusier.

The Cold War began to influence Italian politics.

The royal family is sent into exile after referendum on the Monarchy.

De Gasperi had to accept the harsh Treaty of Paris in 1947, in which Italy gave up all African colonies and relinquished some Alpine territories to France and the Dodecanese islands to Greece.

December 1947: The Constitution of the Republic of Italy was finally ready and signed.

A new constitution goes into effect. It includes a mandate that the state help Italians buy homes.

The Marshall plan is signed into law by President Truman. It results in $13 billion in aid to European recovery efforts.

July 1948: popular Communist Party leader, Togliatti, was shot.

International Events in Architecture and Politics 5

1970

1969

1968

1967

1966

1965

The INA-Casa program ends after building nearly 400,000 new homes for workers during its 14-year lifespan.

1964

1963

1962

1961

1960

1959

1958

1957

1956

1955

1954

1953

1952

1951

1950

1949

1948

1947

1946

1945

1944

1943

1942

1941

1940

The third and fourth INA-Casa design manuals are published.

Italy Since World War II

The end of the war found Italy with a large part of its industry and agriculture shattered. During the Nazi occupation, the Germans had commandeered supplies, almost stripping Italy. Bombing raids and the destructive tide of continuous battle ruined Italian factories, roads, docks, and entire villages. As the Germans retreated, they had wrecked remaining industries and transportation.

People were cold, hungry, and jobless.

The Allies gave substantial quantities of food, clothing, and other supplies to Italy. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration gave more aid to Italy than to any other country.

Reconstruction lagged, however, because of political turmoil and delay in drawing up a peace treaty.

Mussolini with Hitler during the World War II (Britannica, 2018)

While Italy was a battleground, parties representing many political views, from the extreme left to the far right, had sprung up. The more liberal parties demanded an end to the monarchy. Backed by the Allies, however, Victor Emmanuel III remained king until the liberation of Rome in 1944.

Then he delegated his power to his son Umberto. On May 9, 1946, Victor Emmanuel III formally stepped down in favor of his son, who reigned for less than one month as Umberto II.

On June 2, 1946, the Italian people voted to fund a republic, a democratic state without a king or queen. The people elected deputies to a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution.

Italy’s constitution became effective on January 1, 1948. The National Fascist Party and the monarchy were outlawed. Freedom of religion was guaranteed. However, Roman Catholicism remained the state religion until 1984.

Italian leaders had the double task of creating a stable parliamentary system of government and restoring the economy. The war had sharpened Italy’s old problem of supporting a large and growing population on insufficient land. The poverty-stricken south was a drag on the improving economy of the north. The people demonstrated their frustrations with strikes and riots. The various political parties advanced their political and economic programs.

Alcide De Gasperi (at microphone) addressing a huge crowd after the Christian Democratic Party's victory in the April 1948 elections, Rome. (Britannica, 2018)

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After Italy’s experience under the authoritarian rule of Mussolini, the country created a new political system that would prevent its leader from becoming too powerful.

The Christian Democratic Party played the strongest role in Italy’s political development after World War II. The party was predominantly Roman Catholic, moderate, and pro-Western in viewpoint. The Christian Democrats were held together by opposition to communism. Alcide De Gasperi of the Christian Democratic Party served as prime minister from 1945 to 1953. He helped oversee the reconstruction of Italy after the war. The Italian Communist Party was the second largest political party in Italy and the largest communist party in Europe. Immediately after the war, the Italian Communist Party was estimated to have 2.5 million members.

Despite periodic shifts in the composition of the government, the same group of parties, dominated by the Christian Democrats, remained in power in the postwar period. The Amintore Fanfani, Prime Minister of Italy. (Britannica, 2018)

Christian Democrats lost their majority in 1953. Afterward, they had to form coalitions with other parties in order to stay in power. Nevertheless, the Christian Democrats headed up most Italian governments until the early 1990s. Among the prominent Christian Democratic leaders were Amintore Fanfani, Aldo Moro, and Giulio Andreotti, each of whom served multiple terms as prime minister.

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The Economic Miracle

The thirty years between 1950 and 1980 saw a catastrophic change in the landscape and cityscape in the peninsula of Italy. Many of the historic centers of the Italian cities and towns were modified irreversibly, and their suburbs grew as unplanned jungles of cement. Thousands of kilometers of coastline were ruined as hotels and second houses were constructed without any restrains upon their siting or their density. Woods, alpine valleys, fishing villages, lagoons and islands were polluted, destroyed or transformed beyond recognition. Urban Italy sprawled outward, unchecked and unplanned. The new face of the peninsula was represented by the suburbs of Rome, Naples and Palermo, by the periphery of Milan, by skiing resorts like Cervinia and seaside towns like Viareggio. All this earned the Italians the reputation of being a nation both incapable of protecting its heritage, natural and man-made, and unable to govern its future.

Roma - Via Della Conciliazione in 1950 (Adamoli, 2018)

The governments of 1950s and 1960s decided to allow the maximum degree of freedom to private initiative and speculation in the building sector. This was in line with their actions in every other part of the “miracle�, with the exception of broadcasting, which of course they were only too anxious to control. The ruling parties’ point to the departure was the town-planning law of 1942, which safeguarded the rights of landowners, made no attempt to tax profits deriving from land speculation and abandoned the idea of any serious government intervention. The law of 1942 made provision for piani regolatori particolareggiati (local development plans) to be drawn up and enforced by local communes. The plans would have been an important step forward, but the communes were never granted the resources or powers to put them into operation. As a result, they were either never formulated or else remained dead letters.

Still from the documentary 045 ricostruzione edilizia, about the INA casa program.

(YouTube, 2013)

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The building speculators, with money to spend and to corrupt, were left with a free hand. Houses were build, and built fast: 73,400 in 1950, 273,500 in 1957, 4500,00 in 1964. But they were built how and where private interest dictated. No provision was made for town-planning, none for parks, landscaping or even adequate parking facilities. Often the palazzi were constructed without regard for building norms or safety regulations. The newspapers dutifully chronicled the doleful stories of whole families destroyed by collapsing apartments blocks, of hospitals built without anti-seismic foundations in earthquake zones.

Other aspects of housing policy reflected these same emphases on private rather than public initiative. Very little attempt was made to safeguard the need of the poorest sections of the community by the creation of a public or council-housing sector like those of Britain, Holland or West Germany. Between 1948 and 1963 public housing schemes accounted for only 16% of total investment in the construction of houses.

The most notable public initiative was that of the INA-Casa (INA= Istituto Nazionale Abitazioni), a scheme launched by Fanfani in 1949. In the fourteen years of its existence one thousand billion lire was spent, and the scheme constituted a small but significant example of what could have been achieved had government policy been different. In 1963 the INA-Casa scheme was replaced by the GESCAL (Gestione Casa Lavoratori), which became notorious not for building houses but for the corrupt and clientelistic use of its funds. GESCAL was mercifully wound up in the early 1970s. The only other public intervention of note was the ICAP (Istituto Autonomo Case Populari), a scheme which was allowed slightly more local autonomy than the INA-Casa, but which was crippled by its shortage of funds.

Typical logos of the INA casa program that are often seen on the walls of INA-casa buildings. (Rocch, 2018).

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Architecture in Italy under European Fascism

The architectural scene in Italy between 1920 and 1940 was unusual and rather different from the rest of Europe. Italy was the only country with a dictatorial regime that lasted throughout both decades; its political rise to power in 1922 came several years before contemporary architectural movements discovered their own identities. While the regime was taking root (1922-1928), figurative proponents and militant critics were calling for a "return to order" in order to avert a revival of eclectic or floral designs, or indeed any of the pre-war figurative avant-garde styles. The first signs of renewal in the world of fine art was the publication of La Ronda (1919), a magazine

Giovanni Muzio, Ca’Bruta, 1923, Milan (Favole, 2012) This was an innovative project that deviated strongly from the traditional canons; the local Milanese were highly critical of it, dubing it Ca’Bruta (ugly building).

featuring works by de Chirico, Carra, Campigli, Sironi, as well as by the sculptors, Marini and Martini. This was followed by another review, Valori Plastici. The publication of these magazines laid the foundations for the Novecento Movement - its name suggesting that it was representative of the 20th century. This movement also encompassed architects: Giovanni Muzio (1893-1982), Gio Ponti (1891-1979), Ottavio Cabiati (1889-1956) and others. The Novecento Movement reworked Metaphysical depictions through the simplified formal principles of the Secession, employing Classical and geometric references in monumental buildings. The so-called 'Ca'Bruta' building by Muzio (1923) was symbolic of the movement, launching a new architectural language with a compact, curvilinear building. The axial symmetry of the building was lateral rather than central and featured a large arch and superficial ornamentation consisting of tympanums, latticework, alcoves, niches and cornices. The architectural vocabulary was gleaned from many other architectural sources, Milan in particular, with the delicate colour-palette of its buildings such as the hues favoured by Luigi Gigiotti Zanini (1893-1962), who was also a painter, and the sophisticated, volumetric and decorative compositions of Gio Ponti, or the more sombre style of Giuseppe de Finetti (1892-1952), who had studied in Vienna. For several years this group of architects worked in adjacent studios to another of the movement's exponents, Alberto Alpago Novello (1889-1985). The Novecento Movement built palaces and villas for the bourgeoisie; commissions that were often critically received.

Giuseppe De Finetti, Casa della Meridiana, 1924/25, Milan (Favole, 2012) The building was stepped, each flat custom-built for its inhabitants.

Its is famous for the fresco of the sundial by Gigiotti Zanini.

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In 1926, a group of young architects in Milan set up the Gruppo 7. These architects included; Luigi Figini, Guido Frette, Sebastiano Larco, Ubaldo Castagnoli. later to be replaced by Adalberto Libera, Gino Pollini, Carlo Enrico Rava and Giuseppe Terragni. Gruppo 7 represented European Rationalism and was eager to stress that it was not anti-historic, but rather a mouthpiece for the spirit of the times; and therefore, represented Fascist artists. This was the only group to have any international links (some of them even took part in ClAM meetings). They adhered to the same codes as the Modern Movement: volumetric rigour, formal minimalism, functionality and absence of colour.

The most representative works were Villa Figini (1903-1984) in Milan, which was based on Corbusian principles (pilotis, open plan, roof garden) and those of Terragni (1904-1943). Terragni, who came from Como, designed only few truly typical buildings, but those that did exemplify Rationalist canons include Novocomum (1927-1929), a residence with clear references to Russian Constructivism, four houses in Milan and the Casa del Fascio in Como (l932-1936), which is one of the most representative Rationalist buildings.

Villa Figini (Mart, Csac e Archivio Figini, AAF Milano, 2018) This small building was designed along international Rationalist principles and Corbusian planning criteria. It is a bold, orthogonal, white box supported by slender pilotis. The interior is open-plan. The roof has a terrace held within parapet walls.

During the same period, Marcello Piacentini (1881-1960), who had also been influenced by Milanese Novecento. was given numerous public commissions. He was trying to develop a simplified monumental style with eclectic influences, yet with no concessions to the new Neo-Classicism of the Fascist regimes. Regarded in hindsight, the three contemporaneous movements were clearly all seeking a 'return to order' despite their different approaches.

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In 1926 Mussolini delivered a famous speech in Perugia, in which he declared that Fascism did not want a 'regime style of art: Although the preferred, but not exclusive, aesthetic for public buildings during the Fascist era was Monumentalism, acknowledgment was also sought elsewhere, such as in the restoration and enclosure of great Roman monuments (such as the imperial Forum) and the demolition of some historical city centres to make way for new, wide boulevards and piazzas celebrating Fascism. The creation of new cities and building projects in the colonies were also priorities.

The first obvious consequence of Bardi's report was the freedom of exhibitions. A professional institute for the 'industrial arts' was set up in Monza in 1922, which set up the first Biennial Exposition of Decorative Arts a year later, showcasing Novecento works. After four events, it evolved into the Milan Triennale (1933), becoming the leading architectural, pictorial and decorative arts event in Italy. The Biennial became increasingly geared to Rationalist architecture; the first exhibition focusing on Rationalist architecture was held in Rome in 1928. The MIAR (Italian Movement for Rational Architecture) managed to recruit architects from all over Italy. The

Left: Adalberto Libera and Mario de Renzi, façade of the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, 1932, Rome.

A Rationalist scheme by Libera was selected for this eclectic façade. The building consisted of a colossal 30 metre-high cube.

Right: Luigi Moretti, exterior view of the Accademia di Scherma, 1933-1936, Rome.

Moretti’s designs were at times Rational and at other times, structurally bold, but always very innovative. (Adamoli, 2018)

first major architectural reviews were also launched in 1928: La Casa Bella, edited by Giuseppe Pagano and Edoardo Persico and Domus, edited by Gio Ponti.

This was an intense period of activity for the government as far as public building projects was concerned. The party needed Fascist headquarters for the Italian Fascist Youth Organisation, it also needed stadiums as well as other public buildings: railway stations and post offices in particular, even buildings for their colonies. The groups collaborated on the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution in Rome in 1932 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its rise to power. Libera and De Rienzi designed the entrance, whilst Terragni and Nizzoli as well as the artists, Sironi and La Casa Bella and Domus magazines released in 1929 (Casa dell'architettura, 2018)

Funi Prampolini collaborated along with the writer, Leo Longanesi, who set up the Mussolini Room. Libera was also commissioned to build the Italian pavilions in expos held in Chicago (1933) and Brussels (1935).

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Piacentini designed the masterplan for Rome University campus in 1932, commissioning various architects such as Giuseppe Pagano, Gio Ponti, Arnaldo Foschini and Giovanni Michelucci from Florence, as well as several younger architects. The most significant buildings of the period were the Post Office in Rome (1935) by Mario Ridolfi and Mario Fagiolo and the central Post Office in Naples (1936) by Giuseppe Vaccaro. Both were elongated, austere buildings: the post office in Rome had a strong, curved short elevation whilst the post office in Naples had a over-scaled entrance. The competition to build the railway station in Florence (1934) was awarded to a group led by Giovanni Michelucci (1891-1990). The Fascist regime was also involved in three main aspects of town planning: demolishing historic city centres in order to create new boulevards such as Via della Conciliazione in Rome and Via Po in Turin as well as monumental piazzas like Piazza della Vittoria in Brescia: creating new districts within Italy and in its colonies: creating urban plans for numerous cities. This led to the first town planning conference being held in 1937 and to the subsequent issuing of national town planning legislation in 1942. Other architects in Italy began to make their mark with important works in the late 1930s: Ignazio Gardella (1905-1999) with the anti-tuberculosis dispensary in Alessandria (1938) and Carlo Moliino (1905-1973), who designed a riding school in Turin (1940); these works were Rationalist with historic references.

Marcello Piacentini, Piazza della Vittoria, 1928-1932, Brescia.

The ideology of fascism was represented in boulevards and monumental squares, modelled on the glory days of Imperial Rome. (Adamoli, 2018)

In 1938 a group of Milanese architects came up with the concept for the CittĂ del Sole, a large, strictly Rationalist district (never built) which featured identical tower blocks distributed in parallel rows, all orientated in the same direction. However, the group did also build the more modest Filzi district, with ten parallel buildings of varying heights. In 1941, Piacentini started to plan the 1942 EUR (Universal Exposition in Rome), to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of Fascism. After initial

disagreements

-

especially

with

Pagano,

who

rejected

the

concept

of

the

'Monumentalisation of empty space' - architects from various groups decided to take part.

However, the War thwarted the exposition, which was to have consisted of a new district with residential and commercial components.

Adalberto Libera, Palazzo dei Congressi, 1938-1942 Libera designed this palazzo to be monumentally classical, centrally symmetrical and horizontally arranged.

(Il Palazzo dei Congressi di Roma, 2018)

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The dynamic duo

The artistic and professional association created in 1926, between Luigi Figini and the Gino Pollini, involves a singular combination: preclusions towards the dominant academy, objections to the historical avant-gardes, and an appreciation towards a functional study that has been displaying internationally.

The partnership impulses and becomes immediately an integral part of Gruppo 7 (Italian movement for rational architecture). This duo also wrote some articles for the "Rassegna Italiana" in 1927 with the title "A new archaic epoch", handwritten by themselves as they strongly affirmed of having always supported the Milanese rationalism.

The projects and buildings built between 1926 and 1932 represent an intense approach on the relationship that a functional and pure architecture can establish with the environment.

An example of this is the double glazing of the Casa Elettrica built at the IV Triennale (1930), they blended in the new metals, the new paints, and the products of the electrical industry with the trees of the park of the Villa Reale in Monza. From 1932 to 1933 the duo began to design radically original projects using designs with very thin lines and buildings where architecture is enriched by the acquisition of delicate design tools such as the mathematical methods of harmonious proportions of floor plans and elements on the faรงade, as well as the disjointed election of images of white Mediterranean buildings, also overlying the beloved works of Corbusier.

Figini and Pollini, along with Bottoni, stressed the need for the national codification of the urbanistic principles that are needed to be established, with disparities of latent or explicit views, in the organization CIAM.

The works of Figini and Pollini can also be considered as areas in which the architectural result pursues through the accumulation of research, where cultural parameters of the exterior and conditioning enter into a play with mechanical elements so tight that, in the end, the result slips out as an autonomous resolution of a house between greenery, a factory, a housing unit, or even a church.

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Italian architects Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini (Figini and Pollini, n.d.)

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Luigi Figini

Luigi Figini was born in Milan in 1908, he completed his classical studies at Leo XIII (he also painted during those years); he then enrolled in the Faculty of Architecture at Politecnico di Milano, where he graduated in 1926. The intolerance of the stereotypical academic teaching and his anxiety of finding new ways of learning made him group in with Larco and Rava, with Terragni, and later with Pollini. Within this school environment these friendships were consolidated, leading then to the creation of Gruppo 7. Therefore, with his friends of Gruppo 7, with the MIAR (Italian Movement for Rational Architecture), and later with the group of architects of the magazine "Quadrante ", he started to work for the Italian architectural renovation.

Figini was a member of CIAM, which he took part from the beginning, being in the fuss of the controversies of modern architecture. He also participated at numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad. In the ambiance of the artistic avant-garde, bound to the Galleria del Milione, he met with Gege Bottinelli, whom he married in 1935: for this occasion, he designed a small house in the village of the journalists. In 1950 he published “L’elemento verde e l’abitazione”. He collaborated in different magazines, from "Natura" to "Quadrante", and from "Comunità" to "Chiesa e quartiere", with writings and essays on sacred and spontaneous architecture.

Luigi Figini. (Fondo Figini e Pollini, MART, n.d.)

He was a national elected academic of San Luca and received the gold medal of the Province of Milan (in memorial). Luigi Figini passed away on March 13th, 1984. As regards to his professional activity, it took place prevalently in collaboration with Gino Pollini.

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Gino Pollini

Gino Pollini was born in Rovereto in 1908 and returned to Rome in 1918 (where his family had moved during the Great War). After completing his high school studies, he enrolled in the Engineering Faculty of Politecnico di Milano. During that time, friendships were established he exchanged ideas with his peers who were interested in arts and music: Fausto Melotti, Carlo Belli, Fortunato Depero, and Adalberto Libera.

In 1923 Pollini changes from the Faculty of Engineering to Architecture. There was a close connection between students who pursued new avenues for architecture, among them Pollini with Figini and Terragni. This leaded to the formation of Gruppo 7 in 1926, which Pollini later joined along Libera. The battle for the affirmation of rational architecture in Italy began with Gruppo 7.

Pollini graduated in 1927. After taking part in the competition for the master plan of Bolzano, he founded the studio with Figini in Milan.

In 1931 he married Renata Melotti; they had a son called Maurizio who was a pianist. Pollini was an Italian delegate of CIAM from 1980 to 1946, he actively participated in the organization and works of that association. From 1933 to 1936 he was part of the group of architects of the magazine "Quadrante", different commissions of study and was part of the jury of several Gino Pollini. (Fondo Figini e Pollini, MART, n.d.)

architectural planning competitions. He dedicated himself to teaching at the Faculty of Architecture in Milan as a professor in charge of Elements of Architecture since 1963, then in 1969, he continued to teach but in the Faculty of Architecture of Palermo as a full professor of Architectural Composition.

He was a national elected academic of San Luca and received the gold medal of the Province of Milan (in memorial). As regards to his professional activity, it took place prevalently in collaboration with Luigi Figini.

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Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini. (Gregotti and Marzari, 1996)

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Gio Ponti

Giovanni (called "Gio") Ponti was born in Milan on 18 November 189. He enrolled in at the Faculty of Architecture, Milan Polytechnic, but did not graduate until the end of World War One. After the war he was close to the group of "Milanese neo-classicists". After graduating from Politecnico di Milano, he married Giulia Vimercati in 1921. He worked with the Richard-Ginori ceramics factory (until1938), a collaboration that gave rise to a renewed kind of production. He presented porcelain and majolica works of classical inspiration at the 1st lntemational Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Monza, in 1923. He opened his first practice with architect Emilio Lancia (1927-1933). His "classical formation", as he described it, and his passion for pictorial art (he would have liked to be a painter) were the origin of the early Ponti idiom. Central to his style was a new approach to the theme of the home.

In 1928 he founded, with Gianni Mazzocchi, the magazine Domus, which was a unique mouthpiece through which to formulate and popularize new design and architecture ideas. The concept of "ltalian-ness", together with a drawing close to rationalist theories, led him in the late 1920s to conceive his first ''typical houses" emblematically called "Domus". Having temporarily left "Domus" in 1941, Ponti created the magazine "Stile". His role as editor until 1947 gave him another opportunity to spread artistic and architectural culture, part of his attempt to create a new "culture of home living''. In these years Ponti gradually moved away from official publicy-commissioned projects and demonstrated a new interest in the decorative arts, as well as Gio Ponti. (Gio Ponti, 2018)

in painting and in stage design. The early post-war years found him on the one hand intensively involved (in both theory and practice) in the question of reconstruction, and on the other in the renewal of his own formal idiom: volume gave way to surface. A constant preoccupation of this period was the search for luminosity and spatial fluidity.

His acknowledged masterpiece is the Pirelli skyscraper built in 1956. As he approached eighty Gio Ponti was still producing memorable works, most memorably the Cathedral of Taranto (1970) and the Denver Art Museum: his architecture now took the form of the thin perforated sheet. He died in the house in Via Dezza, Milan, September 16, 1979.

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Study Of Materials Used By Architects Figini And Pollini In Selected Projects, 1930 - 1960

1. CASA AL VILLAGGIO DEL GIORNALISTI Project year : 1933 - 35

The plan of the house is inscribed in a golden rectangle (a proportion that measures the entire composition) of 18m x 5.5m. The sub-portico and the full and empty spaces above are linked to each other by simple harmonic ratios, a constant module along the axis of the abscissas and one along the ordinates determine its dimensions. The structure consists of a reinforced concrete bearing cage on isolated pillars, equidistant in both directions, with cantilevered perimeter walls. The technical solutions, which Figini used to indicate as "technical and practical notes", become "aesthetic notes" and the organization of everyday life becomes inspired.

Giacomo Gatto. Casa al Villaggio del Giornalisti [online] Available at: http://www.ordinearchitetti.mi.it/it/mappe/itinerari/edificio/317-casa-al-villaggio-del-giornalisti [Accessed 30 January 2018].

EXTERNAL FINISHES

The perimeter faรงades of the building are in plaster aster with a final white paint finish; inside the terraces the surfaces are treated to the he rustic.

Giacomo Gatto. Casa al Villaggio del Giornalisti [online] Available vailable at: 7-casa-al-villaggio-del-giornalisti http://www.ordinearchitetti.mi.it/it/mappe/itinerari/edificio/317-casa-al-villaggio-del-giornalisti [Accessed 30 January 2018].

rough ough plaster with white paint finish

smooth plaster with white paint finish

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Casa al villagio dei giornalisti a Milano Source : Savi, V., 1990. Figini e Pollini Architetture 1927-1989. 2nd 2nd 2n nd ed. ed. Milano: Electa.

2. ASILO-NIDO E CASA POPOLARE AL BORGO OLIVETTI A IVREA

Project year : 1939 - 40

stone (diorite) pillars

Asilo-Nido e casa popolare al borgo olivetti a Ivrea Source : Savi, V., 1990. Figini e Pollini Architetture 1927-1989. 2nd ed. Milano: Electa.

Smooth finish cement plaster

stone block cladding

The nursery school was built during the war period by the Olivetti Company. The

is adopted. Iron is used only in horizontal reinforced concrete structures. Inside

plot on which the nursery school stands is trapezoidal and runs along a hill used

the building there are the classrooms that overlook an internal patio, the changing

as a space for outdoor games. The nursery is single-storey and is externally clad

rooms, a refectory, the services, the kitchen and the game room.

with square stone blocks. Because of the limitations to the use of iron in building

Source : Ivrea citta industriale. 2001. Asilo nido. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ivreacittaindustriale.it/asilo-nido/. [Accessed 30 January 2018].

imposed during the war period, a masonry supporting structure with diorite pillars

21

3. VIA BROLETTO 37, MILANO Project year : 1947-48

Il complesso di via Broletto si presenta dunque come il primo esperimento compiuto sul tema prediletto della facciata “tridimensionale”, con uno sforzo di approfondimento degli effetti di chiaroscuro e vibrazione luminosa dati dalla trasposizione della “pelle” di facciata su più piani arretrati. Non solo: questo gioco

Soc. Imm. Nuovo Broletto, Via Broletto 37, Fronte est Rapp.1:100 Source: Giacomo Polin. Edificio per abitazioni e uffici / 1947-1948 / Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ordinearchitetti.mi.it. [Accessed 30 January 2018].

di sdoppiamento dei piani si svolge anche sulla verticale, raddoppiando gli architravi di ogni finestra per permettere l’alloggiamento delle tapparelle in corrispondenza di quelli inferiori, con un effetto generale di trama “scozzese”, nel tentativo di sviluppare la semplice trama ortogonale del razionalismo delle origini in direzione di una maggiore complessità costruttiva e percettiva.

Giacomo Polin.

Edificio per abitazioni e uffici / 1947-1948 http://www.ordinearchitetti.mi.it. [Accessed 30 January 2018].

/

Luigi

Figini,

Gino

Pollini.

[ONLINE] Available

at:

EXTERNAL FINISHES Travertine coating with a rustic surface was used on the two fronts of the offices, Ivory-colored artificial stone on the two sides of the smaller building and on the sides of the tower, limiting the use of plaster in view of the walls of the loggias and withdrawals.

Facade of Edificio per uffici e abitazioni in via Broletto a Milano Source : Savi, V., 1990. Figini e Pollini Architetture 1927-1989. 2nd ed. Milano: Electa.

Rough travertine finish

Hammered cement plaster finish

Tower, detail [ONLINE].

Available

22

at:

http://housingprototypes.org/

4. FASCIA DI SERVIZI SOCIALI OLIVETTI A IVREA Project year : 1954 - 59

Fulget

Source : Ivrea citta industriale. 2001. Centro Servizi Sociali. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ivreacittaindustriale.it/centro-servizi-sociali/. [Accessed 30 January 2018].

The project was presented to an invited competition in two versions: one based on the geometry of the hexagon and a variant according to the right angle, more adherent to the rationalist logic. The definitive choice for the hexagonal solution

Smooth finish cement plaster

was also taken with the participation of Adriano Olivetti, directly involved in the development of the project. The hexagonal lattice "opens" the building towards the street, involving the urban space in a continuity between internal and external of organic matrix.

Source : Fascia dei Servizi Sociali Olivetti. Progetto - La Genesi. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.centrodirezionaleivrea.com/.

[Accessed 30 January 2018].

Natural granite

Fulget

23

INA-Casa

“After World War II Italy achieved a degree of shared prosperity that was unprecedented in its history, allowing the country to enjoy both a high material standard of living and a great deal of security (job protections, generous unemployment benefits, and free health care and education), while leaving intact many idiosyncratic yet often inefficient national habits and institutions ...”

(Stille, 2013)

The problem of reconstruction and housing in post-was Europe affected millions of refugees, homeless and displaced people creating an extraordinary demand for housing. In all, two million habitable rooms were destroyed in Italy during the war, while another four million were damaged.

INA-Casa plan Named after the Istituto Nazionale d’Assicurazione (or INA, the National Insurance Agency), which provided the financing, the Ina-Casa plan distributed housing and jobs throughout the nation., that operated between 1929 and 1963 had the aim to provide houses to Italians that lived in deplorable conditions or that didn’t have a where to live at all. After the war the need for employment and housing was massive, more than 2 million of the 45 million Italians were unemployed. The construction industry was identified as the ideal sector in which to rapidly create jobs. By 1945, five million new habitable rooms were needed in order to reach the government’s goal of lowering density to one person per room, so that a family of four might have a four-room apartment with two bedrooms, a kitchen/dining area, and a living room. Between one and two people per room was considered overcrowded, while anything over two people per room was extremely overcrowded. (Beretta, 1963)

Typical logos of the INA casa program that are often seen on the walls of INA-casa buildings. (Rocch, 2018).

24

Amintore Fanfani, the Minister of Labor and Social Security, drafted the legislation that ultimately created the Ina-Casa or “Fanfani plan” in 1948. But providing housing was only half of Fanfani’s aim; the Ina-Casa program was, first and foremost, an employment plan. The Ina-Casa plan was approved at the end of February 1949, after six months of harsh political debate between and within the Christian Democrats (DC) who were proponents of the law, and the Italian Communist Party (PCI). The main issue was funding, which was initially to be raised through a compulsory tax on employees but was later augmented to include a tax on employers. On the other hand, the state gave the biggest financial contribution. In two seven-year stages, in approximately 5000 different municipalities, this plan resulted in the construction of over 350,000 new homes and an average of 7.8 million working days annually. While the first stage the state was fully in charge of construction, in the second stage it focused in granting financial assistance for construction.

The administrators and architects of Ina-Casa did not, however, limit their aspirations to simply creating jobs and basic shelters as many earlier public housing programs had done. They recognized such massive reconstruction projects opened the way for, and even demanded, a rethinking of public housing. Quality housing was widely believed to have a direct bearing on citizenship and participation in the national community, particularly for the working-class. Thus, it was not just its vast numerical goals, but also Ina-Casa’s psychological and sociological aims that enabled designers to view their work as part of a much larger. In general, the neighborhoods of Ina-Casa are recognizable due to the use of picturesque planning principles, the inclusion of a mixture of building types ranging from duplexes to row houses to eight-story towers of flats, and the consistent incorporation of balconies and patios. strength and resilience over half a century.

INA-Casa built real communities based on a solid foundation of communitarian social policy and outstanding architecture and urban design.

Typical logos of the INA casa program that are often seen on the walls of INA-casa buildings. (Rocch, 2018).

25

By 1956, however, when the second phase of the plan began, designers were more free and willing to pursue more contemporary design strategies resulting in projects such as il Biscione, an enormous concrete housing block raised on pilotis in the hills overlooking the center of Genoa designed by a team of architects led by Luigi Carlo Danieri. The fact that Ina-Casa designers often turned to the vernacular and rural building traditions of each particular region for inspiration reflects the larger postwar anxiety about nationalism and a vision of Italy as a collection of diverse and semi-autonomous cultures. Every Ina-Casa home had running water, electricity and indoor plumbing, a trio of amenities that were found in just 7.4 percent of Italian homes in 1951.

(Ginsborg, 2003).

Locating Ina-Casa neighborhoods on the periphery of major cities, for example, illustrates that, despite postwar discussions of its needs, the working-class was being made physically invisible in the metropolis by being relegated to its edge. Through the architects’ writings and comparisons to their earlier works, it is possible to grasp how designers sought to use architectural design to create distance from Fascism.

The Ina-Casa intervention deserves merit for a search of good quality in housing, in an attempt to minimize the divide between architecture and planning, by for example incorporating more structured sociological conceptualizations such as envisioning the working-class families and the evolution of the gender roles that would have affected the way of inhabiting. Ina-Casa plan, a plan designed to offer jobs more than housing, able to build neighborhoods in a different, probably more sustainable way, than successive interventions.

Typical logos of the INA casa program that are often seen on the walls of INA-casa buildings. (Rocch, 2018).

26

The Ina-Casa projects have aged so successfully that they are not perceived by their residents as “social housing� at all. These designs emerge as important inspirations for a genuine social housing movement; they have proven their strength and resilience over half a century. INA-Casa built real communities based on a solid foundation of communitarian social policy and outstanding architecture and urban design.

The ways in which the plan determined eligibility and selected families illustrates how the administrators of Ina-Casa envisioned the ideal postwar family. Direct lineage was the only acceptable family relationship—grandparents were welcome; aunts, uncles, cousins and other extended family members were not. Points were assigned to each application based on these criteria, which included family size, current living conditions, and whether members of a family had been separated due to work. By the second settennio, 76 percent of residents were purchasing their homes reflecting the improving Italian economy and the continued affordability of Ina-Casa homes.

Typical logos of the INA casa program that are often seen on the walls of INA-casa buildings. (Rocch, 2018).

27

INA-Casa Design Manuals

The four design manuals produced by the Projects Office are small pamphlets, roughly six by nine inches in size and ranging from 50 to 82 pages in length. They are richly illustrated with black and white photographs, diagrams, and drawings. The first manual, the competition brief (Suggerimenti, Norme, E Schemi Per La Elaborazione E Presentazione Dei Progetti: Bandi Dei Concorsi) was published shortly after the initial legislation was passed in 1949.

Presenting a description of the INA-Casa plan, design guidelines for the housing units, and procedures for the competition entries, the competition brief describes a philosophy of how the built environment is connected to social problems. Urban design issues are not considered because it is not clear from the outset that large neighborhoods on undeveloped suburban parcels of land would become the most common type of INA-Casa development. Thus, the first manual bridges between the social and environmental aspirations of the INA-Casa plan and more detailed considerations of architectural and interior elements.

Initially, the administration and local agencies experimented with smaller-scale interventions composed of a single building or of a few buildings inside the historic centers of cities. Eventually, however, constructing larger developments with hundreds or even thousands of dwelling units provided the economic advantage of scale. As the size of typical INA-Casa projects grew into residential quarters, the administration began work on a second manual to communicate their expectations for urban design. In 1950, the Projects Office created Suggestions, examples, and norms for urban design: Typical projects (Suggerimenti, esempi e norme per la progettazione urbanistica: Progetti tipo). This urban design manual addresses site and landscape concerns and includes exemplary INA-Casa projects designed by prominent Italian architects, such as Mario Ridolfi and Giuseppe Vaccaro. The winding streets and variation in perspective views that would come to characterize the first settennio neighborhoods are promoted in this second manual. Thus, the distinctive scale and urban character of many early INA-Casa neighborhoods can be traced back to the second design manual.

28

Suggestions, examples, and norms for urban design: Typical projects.

(Damasso, 1949)

Towards the end of the first settennio, a survey was conducted to gather residents’ opinions about their new homes. A second pair of design manuals was drafted partly in response to the resident survey and published in 1956 at the start of the second seven-year phase of the plan. The Projects Office revised the guidelines and rules for building typologies, minimum apartment sizes, kitchen and bathroom fixtures, and so on. Beyond these revisions, the general focus of the third and fourth manuals shifted away from how the plan might change society to practical matters of implementing the plan. The second pair of manuals has little of the poetry and aspirational quality of the first pair; instead the authors attend to how the plan was organized, the financing structure, and the roles of the various actors and bureaucracies involved. The second set of manuals addresses those questions that had most often arisen during the first seven years of design and construction, such as which type of heating system is best and at what point one should plan to include a cinema in a neighborhood. As a result of the responses collected from residents in the 1956 survey, the new pair of manuals also presented a list of prohibited building and apartment types and plan arrangements, as well as architectural elements that residents did not like, such as A typical plan diagram from the competition brief.

(Damasso, 1949)

uncovered stairs, units spread over two floors, and homes on the ground level.

29

First elaborated scheme from the competition brief.

(Damasso, 1949)

Second elaborated scheme from the competition brief.

(Damasso, 1949)

Third elaborated scheme from the competition brief.

(Damasso, 1949)

30

The third manual, the Guide to the examination of INA-Casa construction design to be realized in the second settennio (Guida per l’esame dei progetti delle costruzioni INA-Casa da realizzare nel secondo settennio), expands the focus on construction and technical problems, and introduces rules for including community buildings. Tables illustrate, for example, how to appropriately proportion the social centers. The third manual also contains a survey to be completed by architects, engineers and affiliated agencies. The final manual, Construction norms for the second settennio extracted from deliberations of the plan actualization committee and the directive council of the INA-Casa management (Norme per le costruzioni del secondo settennio estratte da delibere del comitato di attuazione del piano e del consiglio direttivo della Gestione INA-Casa), is more concerned with organizational questions, describing the roles of the various actors and agencies involved, the financing and payment procedures, and updated construction standards.

As the Projects Office turned their attention to more pragmatic and process-oriented questions, the design guidelines were relaxed and the architecture and urban character of INA-Casa projects evolved in the second settennio. Many of the neighborhoods that were built during the second phase are marked by a return to a more modern approach to design and a break from the restrained scale and vernacular aesthetics of earlier INA-Casa neighborhoods.

The first and second manuals comprise a theory and method of interior, architectural, and urban design for architects working during the first seven years of the plan. At the heart of the first two manuals’ guidelines is the repeated recommendation to embrace the context, for example, by using local materials, forms, and construction techniques. This approach was partly tied to the desire to create jobs for unskilled workers throughout Italy: by using local methods and materials, more jobs could be created in a shorter period of time. That traditional construction methods might be more labor-intensive was viewed as a positive effect of the plan (Nicoloso, 2001). The content of the manuals ranges from reflections on the social responsibilities of those involved in the plan, such as advising all involved to “avoid any superfluous spending, which is particularly disgraceful when every room built beyond those required could go to relieve the discomfort of another person without the benefits of a home” to more precise and focused requirements, such as maximum density. Straightforward standards for apartment sizes and maximum cost per room are listed throughout the manuals with additional stipulations as needed; the cost per room, for example, is to be reduced by 8,000 lire when the land is donated. Technical and constructive guidelines are less specific because of the repeated instruction to use local materials and methods. The competition brief, for example, simply requires that designers “Briefly detail explicitly the systems of construction, of the finishings of the installation.” Standard details and materials are not seriously considered or studied in either of the first two manuals. In fact, the most attention paid to construction methods and materials comes in the form of lists of rules and norms that argue in favor of using local building traditions.

The first manual, the competition brief, is primarily dedicated to providing architects with examples of how the programmatic requirements might be arranged in a variety of building types. In all, diagrams of 81 different apartment floor plans give designers a starting point for any combination of four building typologies, three apartment sizes, and three kitchen-living-dining room arrangements.

An elaboration of a single scheme—a three-story building comprised of two-bedroom apartments—into three different designs illustrates how, even when architects started with the same essential plan, exterior expressions could be quite different as shown in the images.

31

Quartiere Harar-Dessiè

After a new constitution goes into effect in 1945 that includes a mandate that the state needs to help Italians to buy homes and the signing of the Marshal plan by President Trumen, the economic recovery period started. The Istituto Nazionale per le Assicurazione (INA-Casa) first settenio was signed in 1949 with a program that aimed to provide a home for everyone. INA-Casa residential quartiere is a mix of buildings on an open site designed by different architects. Most the projects followed CIAM doctrines for new settlements: free-standing buildings, alternating groups of buildings and open space, serviced by a loose network of principle and tertiary streets.

This quartiere is located in the zone of San Siro, between Via Novara and Harar, although is situated in the periphery of the city it is not considered as a satellite neighborhood but as a new

The signing of the new Italian constitution. (Corriere Della Sera, 2016)

urban neighborhood. It was considered that the population of the quartiere will not be made up by workers of a specific neighbor factory or a limited industrial zone, as other INA-Casa neighborhoods were, but from people that worked in different part of the city. The residents of this quartiere were taking advantage of the present transportation services by that time so in consequence the population will have a typically citizen profile. The area of the green public space, included in the buildings and assigned to the parks, corresponds to the design of the city plan. The quartiere has been set up on two fundamental types of buildings that corresponds to the natural tendency of choosing the type of house: single-family house with garden, grouped in “insulae” and the muli-family unites in the multi-storey building.

Quartiere Harar-Dessiè is a clear representation of the rationalist architecture that stands against the settlements that were built after the war, it can be seen through the architecture of each building. Italian architects Figini, Pollini and Ponti transformed the imposed constraints established by INA-Casa by create a system characterized by a strong, recognizable urban design which represent their idea of a city. Their impression of city is exemplified by the horizontal multi-storey buildings and single-family units of low density identified as “horizontal skyscrapers” and “insulae”, respectably. The buildings within the quartiere that were designed by Figini, Pollini, Ponti and Bottoni are considered as an example of the evidence of the development of Milanese rationalism.

Part of the northern façade of building A by Figini & Pollini in the Quartiere Harar-Dessiè (Savi, 1990)

32

Each of the horizontal buildings have green areas, distributed in both sides of the building that are connected by a portico, so in a way it can always have a sunny space, either in shade or covered, depending on the time and the season. For the multi-storey buildings, three different typologies of units were given. The designers have pursued to provide the buildings with the maximum visual openings through the volumetric composition.

The triangular area of the entire quaritere is enclosed on two sides by high traffic roads (Via Novara and via Harar) and is also cut by another high traffic street designed by the town plan. The two areas of the neighborhood that are separated will be connected by a trench with a small bridge or an underpass.

The particular location of the new district, including streets of high traffic, has given special attention to the need for equipment and internal services, designed to make the neighborhood self-sufficient especially for the children. To this end, the large indoor park houses the nursery school, the elementary school and the sports equipment. Along the pedestrian axis and near the Part of the masterplan on the western side of the Figini and Pollini which demonstrates the complexities of the public spaces in relation to the residential buildings (Fondo Figini e Pollini, MART, n.d.)

arrival of the tramway, there is projected a life center in the neighborhood with cafes, bars, shops, cinemas, etc.

33

Building A in Quartiere Harar-Dessiè

by Figini and Pollini

The building has an East-West orientation and includes 84 apartments, each of two floors, in three levels detached from balconies. The entire building, made of 145.22 meters long, is divided into three bodies by expansion joints. The ground floor that is partially open with pilotis with a height of 2.30 meters contains tenant storage and has a large fenced-in area in the North and South. On the South side there is a playground area for children.

Architects Figini and Pollini have projected, in the South façade of the building, a controlled exhibition of the structure that defines a geometric grid with linear meshes that are organized and represented by pillars and floors that follows a characterized vertical rhythm. The separation between the structure and casing determines a dialectic between the lightness and heaviness that can be read through the shadows that the structure projects over the casing, creating this sense of depth in the façade. The North façade, oriented to the San Siro Stadium, denotes instead a certain juxtaposition: the wall surface is continuous, they involved elements that covers the structure while the figurative characters are assigned to the horizontal strips that are defined by

A fragment of the South elevation with the structural lattice highlighted by the receding of the buffer surfaces. (Suriano, 2016)

the balconies. A characteristic element is that there are no windows facing the exterior balcony at the corridor level in the North.

A section through the north elevation of the apartments.

(Fondo Figini e Pollini, MART, n.d.)

34

The dwellings, a one bedroom and a two bedroom type are coupled to a service zone perpendicular to the cantilevered access gallery that, on the lower floor, contains entrances, storage, and kitchens in the rear, with baths above the entry on the second floor. The two story-high living area has a blank wall facing the gallery but a large high window above admits light to the upper part of the two-story space of the living room. Kitchen and dining open to a narrow balcony at the rear that is expressed as a volume eroded from the structural frame. The stair connects the entrance to the zone of bedrooms on the second level, on the south side where the windows that are protected from southerly sun by the overhang of the slab on the floor above. The bathroom window opens to a narrow balcony above the access gallery. The different widths of the two dwellings are expressed on the exterior by the unequal structural bays. The living-dining room consists of an open environment, which embosses the two opposite fronts to the North and South, benefiting from the double orientation and a very effective transverse ventilation, with a total altitude of 5.35 in the double height area. An internal wooden staircase leads to the bedrooms and the toilet located on the upper floor.

Different views of the building taken from the garden and from Via Monte Baldo.

(Suriano, 2016)

35

Design iteration of Quartiere Harar-Dessiè

In the following proposal: - Buildings are placed parallel to each other following Via. S. Giusto alignment - The green area is located at the center as well as service buildings - There are 12 different access to the Quartiere - Principal and minor pedestrian streets are designed to connect the traffic roads with the neighborhood - A Tram station is projected - There is a proposal to close the park during the night - The area of the insulae are bordering the neighborhood

Main pedestrian street

Secondary pedestrian street

Vehicular street

Pedestrian And Automobile Traffic (Archives, General Plans Table 3-1)

36

Gates

Buildings

Park

Night Paths (Archives, General Plans Table 3-2)

Insulae

Buildings

Park

Zoning (Archives, General Plans Table 3-3)

37

Master Plan of Quartiere Harar-Dessiè

This neighborhood represents in a clear way the compositional dialogue on the contrast of the elements. The design has nine large high buildings in six floors with strong horizontal development, four of which are arranged to enclose a green area that hosts the neighborhood services. In the unfilled spaces left from these buildings, single-family groups of houses are created with the name of "insulae”. The houses, either of one or two floors, create a dense and heterogeneous fabric inside the block, reiterating by the perimeter that closes them made up of a wall to which the pattern is sometimes alternated.

The task of giving a glimpse of the internal complexity is in the rhythm of the roofs. The composition of the “insulae” of single-family dwellings is the way in which the designers contextualize, making it a unique model. The design of Quartiere Harar-Dessiè remains an open design, which ends only because space is limited to being able to build.

Remaining linked to what has been designed and realized, the contrast between the strong primary masses compared to the low and continuous fabric of the single-family houses is a volumetric orchestration that engages a way of living. The large buildings which are placed at a higher level, relate directly with the city as primary visible elements, which mark the urban skyline. The single-family houses can be discovered only by approaching the neighborhood.

The multi-storey buildings have a ground floor that is sometimes open with pilotis and sometimes closed with the volumes of the cellars and stores. The ground on which they rest is treated green, protected from the rest of the zone by fences. In the cases where the pilotis are present, the area of relevance continues under the building thus offering the sense of openness. Single-family houses, on the other hand, have their own spaces within the perimeter of the insulae.

The possibility to orientate easily between the external spaces adds attention to the quality of the views of the accommodation. The inhabitants of the multi-storey buildings are always given the opportunity to enjoy deep scenarios, not hindered by the buildings facing. This is because where they look towards other multi-storey buildings which are always disposed at an appreciable distance, the reduced height of the houses that make up the insulae does not limit the view to those facing in their direction.

38

Buildings with 1 or 2 floors (Insulae) Buildings of 5 floors

This masterplan proposes different areas that werent built: - Business at the South of building A - Coffee shop at the North of building C - Life Center at the South of building G - Cinema at the North of insulae X - Buisiness at the North of insulae VIII

INA-Casa Quartiere Via Harar, Milano (ALER Archives, Neighboorhood

39

Current situation of Quartiere Harar-Dessiè

Nowadays the masterplan design has faced some changes due to the eventually urbanization and growth of the area. New parking lots have been added due to the increasing demand and use of cars within the neighborhood, some of them are underground. The fences of the buildings were modified to fit the safety necessities of the users, some of them closing completely the path as it is in the case of building B. The Metro station now forms part of the Neighborhood.

San Siro Stadio Metro Station Underground Parking instead of Cinema

Underground Parking

Passageway closed by fence

Public School instead of Life Center Via Harar

Via Dessiè

S. G

ius

to

No va ra

Via .

Vi a

Via Harar

Vi a

No va ra

Courts added to the center green area Buffering Green Belt Harar Library instead of projected business

Google Maps view of the site. (Google Maps, 2018)

Satellite view of the site. (Google Maps, 2018)

40

Master Plan of Quartiere Harar-Dessiè

Buildings’ Arhitects

Insulae’s Architects

A - I: "Buildings"

A: Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini

I: Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini

VII: Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini

I - XII: "Insulae"

B: Paolo Antonio Chessa, Vito Latis

II: Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini

VIII: Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini

1: Nursery school

C: Gio Ponti, Gigi Ghò

III: Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini

IX: Mario Tedeschi

2: Elementary school

D: Gio Ponti, Antonio Fornaroli

IV: Paolo Antonio Chessa

X: Tito Bassanesi Varisco

3: Social Center

E: Alberto Rosselli

V: Paolo Antonio Chessa

XI: Tito Bassanesi Varisco

F: Alberto Rosselli

VI: Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini

XII: Tito Bassanesi Varisco

G: Gianluigi Reggio, Mario Tevarotto H: Piero Bottoni, Mario Morini, Carlo Villa I: Piero Bottoni, Mario Morini, Carlo Villa

Map of Quartiere Via Harar, Milano (Arbalete, 2014)

41

Bussiness Design Proposal

(Ordinearchitetti.mi.it, 2018)

Building A is located on the upper North West side of the neighbourhood directly adjacent to the road Via Harar.

Via Harar-Dessie Building A. (n.d.).

(Zupelli, 2017).

The original project master-plan provided local retail amenities to the south of Building A. Building A featured a walled garden.

42

The walled garden can be seen in the above photo however the shops & cafes were never constructed, with the intended location being left undevloped

(Savi, 1990)

(Ordinearchitetti.mi.it, 2018)

The plans of the buildings demonstrate that the shops & cafĂŠ spaces were intended as a small social space linking different residential communities

43

Bibliography

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Gregotti, V. and Marzari, G. (1996). Luigi Figini, Gini Pollini - opera completa. Milano: Electa.

Nicoloso, P. (2001). Gli architetti: il rilancio di una professione. In: P. Di Biagi, ed., La Grande Riconstruzione: Il Piano INA-Casa e l'Italia degli anni cinquanta. Roma: Donzelli Editore.

Pilat, S. (2014). Reconstructing Italy: The Ina-Casa Neighborhoods of the Postwar Era (Ashgate Studies in Architecture).

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Pugliese, R. (2005). La casa popolare in Lombardia. Milano: Unicopli.

Savi, V., (1990). Figini e Pollini: architetture 1927-1989. 2nd ed. Milano: Electa.

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Propersi, A., Mastrilli, G. and Gundes-Gressel, S. (2017). The Third Sector and Social Housing in Italy: case study of a profit and non-profit public private partnership. [online] Citation.allacademic.com. Available at: http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/5/5/1/2/0/p551207_index.html [Accessed 20 Jan. 2018].

Satori, A. (2016). Unità residenziale al quartiere Harar-Dessiè - Milano (MI) | Architettura in Lombardia dal 1945 ad oggi. [online] Lombardiabeniculturali.it. Available at: http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/architetture900/schede/RL560-00033/ [Accessed 3 Feb. 2018].

Sherwood, R. (2002). Housing Prototypes: INA Casa Harrar/Figini. [online] Housingprototypes.org. Available at: http://housingprototypes.org/project?File_No=ITA015 [Accessed 21 Oct. 2017].

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Zupelli, E. (2017). Figini-Pollini | Via Harar | Milano. [online] ISSUE. Available at: https://issuu.com/eziozupelli/docs/ridotto [Accessed 11 Oct. 2017].

MAGAZINES Astengo, G. (1951). Nuovi quartiere in Italia. Urbanistica, (7), p.11.

Il Quartiere INA-Casa in Via Dessiè a Milano. (1952). Domus, (270), pp.9-14.

Milano: Quartiere in via Dessiè. (1951). Urbanistica, (7), p.18.

Quartiere Harar-Dessiè. (1979). Casabella, (451-452), pp.42-43.

Quartiere Residenziale INA-Casa di via Harar-Dessiè. (1961). Casabella continuità, (253), p.26.

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OTHERS Damasso, F. (1949). Suggerimenti, norme, e schemi per la elaborazione e presentazione dei progetti: Bandi dei concorsi.

Roma.

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