A tribute to a recently rediscovered Italian architect and urban planner from the early twentieth century, featuring 150 previously unpublished photographs. After the recent work on Carlo Scarpa, this new volume is dedicated to Piero Portaluppi (1888-1967), a significant and recently rediscovered figure of Italian twentieth-century architecture. Long neglected by critics, his work has been revisited and rightly reappraised thanks to the opening of Villa Necchi in Milan to the public. The book traces Portaluppi’s work through three design typologies: living spaces, the aesthetics of industrial structures and public places. Notable examples of the industrial spaces include the power plants that Portalupi lovingly constructed from 1910 to 1930, real architectural gems with an eclectic taste.
Fascism, Architecture, and the Claiming of Modern Milan, 1922–1943 chronicles the dramatic architectural and urban transformation of Milan during the nearly twenty years of fascist rule. The commercial and financial centre of Italy and the birthplace of fascism, Milan played a central role in constructing fascism’s national image and identity as it advanced from a revolutionary movement to an established state power. Using a wide range of archival sources, Lucy M. Maulsby analyses the public buildings, from the relatively modest party headquarters to the grandiose Palace of Justice and the Palazzo del Popolo d’Italia, through which Mussolini intended to enhance the city’s image and solidify fascism’s presence in Milan. Maulsby establishes the extent to which Milan’s economic structure, social composition, and cultural orientation affected Il Duce’s plans for the city, demonstrating the influences on urban development that were beyond the control of the fascist regime. By placing Milan’s urban change in its historic context, this book expands our understanding of the relationship between fascism and the modern city.
Between 1917 to 1975 Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Soviet Union, and Spain shifted from liberal parliamentary democracies to authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships, seeking total control, mass consensus, and the constitution of a 'new man/woman' as the foundation of a modern collective social identity. As they did so these regimes uniformly adopted what we would call a modernist aesthetic – huge-scale experiments in modernism were funded and supported by fascist and totalitarian dictators. Famous examples include Mussolini's New Rome at EUR, or the Stalinist apartment blocks built in urban Russia. Focusing largely on Mussolini's Italy, Francesca Billiani argues that modernity was intertwined irrecoverably with fascism – that too often modernist buildings, art and writings are seen as a purely cultural output, when in fact the principles of modernist aesthetics constitute and are constituted by the principles of fascism. The obsession with the creation of the 'new man' in art and in reality shows this synergy at work. This book is a key contribution to the field of twentieth century history – particularly in the study of fascism, while also appealing to students of art history and philosophy.
This book takes up the stimuli of new international historiography, albeit focusing mainly on the two regimes that undoubtedly provided the model for Fascist movements in Europe, namely the Italian and the German. Starting with a historiographical assessment of the international situation, vis-à-vis studies on Fascism and National Socialism, and then concentrate on certain aspects that are essential to any study of the two dictatorships, namely the complex relationships with their respective societies, the figures of the two dictators and the role of violence. This volume reaches beyond the time-frame encompassing Fascism and National Socialism experiences, directing the attention also toward the period subsequent to their demise. This is done in two ways. On the one hand, examining the uncomfortable architectural legacy left by dictatorships to the democratic societies that came after the war. On the other hand, the book addresses an issue that is very much alive both in the strictly historiographical and political science debate, that is to say, to what extent can the label of Fascism be used to identify political phenomena of these current times, such as movements and parties of the so-called populist and souverainist right.
The town hall or city hall as a place of local governance is historically related to the founding of cities in medieval Europe. As the space of representative civic authority it aimed to set the terms of public space and engagement with the citizenry. In subsequent centuries, as the idea and built form travelled beyond Europe to become an established institution across the globe, the parameters of civic representation changed and the town hall was forced to negotiate new notions of urbanism and public space. City Halls and Civic Materialism: Towards a Global History of Urban Public Space utilizes the town hall in its global historical incarnations as bases to probe these changing ideas of urban public space. The essays in this volume provide an analysis of the architecture, iconography, and spatial relations that constitute the town hall to explore its historical ability to accommodate the "public" in different political and social contexts, in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Americas, as the relation between citizens and civic authority had to be revisited with the universal franchise, under fascism, after the devastation of the world wars, decolonization, and most recently, with the neo-liberal restructuring of cities. As a global phenomenon, the town hall challenges the idea that nationalism, imperialism, democracy, the idea of citizenship – concepts that frame the relation between the individual and the body politic -- travel the globe in modular forms, or in predictable trajectories from the West to East, North to South. Collectively the essays argue that if the town hall has historically been connected with the articulation of bourgeois civil society, then the town hall as a global spatial type -- architectural space, urban monument, and space of governance -- holds a mirror to the promise and limits of civil society.
A tribute to a great master of postwar Italian architecture, through a photographic journey with high visual impact. Carlo Scarpa was one of the great masters of postwar Italian architecture. This book proposes a photographic itinerary that unfurls through Venice, Treviso, Verona and Bologna, before reaching the Dolomites, His most significant projects have been photographed specifically for the book, including constructions and installations in public spaces, such as museums, shops and offices. Each example illustrates Scarpa's ability to approach the architectural volume as a whole while at the same time tending to its interior layout down to the smallest details, exploring the potential of the material, giving rhythm to the volumes through light, and expressing the poetics of the shape, even in its simplest lines. The projects featured in the book alternate between overviews and close-ups, with a very high photographic quality. They are all briefly introduced by a text that describes their genesis, explains the context in which they were made and focuses on the details that best represent Scarpa's style, with a summary and clear key to understanding the architect's work. The volume ends with a postscript by his son, Tobia Scarpa, who is currently designing the forthcoming Scarpa Museum in Treviso.
Perfect day itineraries and top travel tips in a pocket-sized package. Plan your trip, plan perfect days and discover how to get around - this pocket-sized guide is a convenient, quick-reference companion to discovering fun and interesting things to do and see in Milan, from top tourist attractions like La Scala, the Duomo, the Brera, and world-famous art like The last Supper, to hidden gems including the Navigli. Compact, concise and packed with essential information about Where to Go and What to Do, this is an ideal on-the-move pocket travel guide when you're exploring Milan. - Cultural: delve into the city's rich heritage and get to know its modern-day life and people - Inspirational: discover where to go and what to do, highlighted with stunning photography - Practical: get around with ease with a free pull-out map featuring key attractions - Informative: plan your visit with an A to Z of advice on everything from transport to tipping - Inventive design makes for an engaging, easy-reading experience - Covers: the historic centre, the fashion district, restaurants and excursions About Insight Guides: Insight Guides is a pioneer of full-colour guide books, with almost 50 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides with user-friendly, modern design. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps, as well as phrase books, picture-packed eBooks and apps to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.
Milan is the European fashion capital with one of the world’s most unique luxury fashion districts where the leaders of some of the most exclusive fashion houses are still living and working today. It’s the Italian city whose skyline has changed more than any, and whose fashion industry has extended to encompass the worlds of design, restaurants, bars, exhibition spaces, hotels and more. Whether you’re looking for designer labels within the city’s luxury fashion district, prefer to browse the city’s boutiques or pick up some quality vintage at the city’s vintage shops and markets, this is the guide that will tell you where to go. Split into geographical sections along with relevant maps, cultural highlights and suggestions for where to eat and drink, it places Milan as the city of fashion within the context of Italian fashion history and a city, and brings the stories of its people to life. Why did Milan become Italy’s fashion capital? And what does it offer the fashion lover as a city today?
Milan, since the period after World War II, has developed its own specific interpretation of modern architecture: a Milanese path to architectural Modernity. In model suburban developments like QT8 (a proving ground for the best solutions formulated by international architectural culture in the 1920s and 1930s), but also in original buildings in the center, like the Torre Velasca and the Pirelli skyscraper, Milan has become a true outdoor museum of modern architecture. The names of the leading figures of this period are Gio Ponti, Piero Bottoni, Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Lodovico Belgiojoso, Ignazio Gardella, Luigi Moretti, Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Vico Magistretti; as well as Vittorio Gregotti, Aldo Rossi, Guido Canella, Carlo Aymonino, Gino Valle, Gabetti & Isola: architects that over a few decades gave Milan its building-symbols, providing structures suitable for a city aspiring to a role as a leading player on the European stage. The works of these architects have been joined, in the late 20th century and the initial years of the new millennium, in a period of renewed construction activity, by projects bearing the world-famous signatures of Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Arata Isozaki, Peter Eisenman and Rem Koolhaas, along with those of Italian talents like - among others - Renzo Piano, Cino Zucchi and Stefano Boeri. A significant contribution that has given Milan an important position on the international architecture scene, destined to be reinforced by EXPO 2015. This book takes a critical look at the various aspects of development of Milanese architecture, and in 100 profiles illustrated with photographs made for the occasion it presents the city's most outstanding buildings erected over the course of the last seventy years.
MCM - Milano Capital of the Modern, edited by Lorenzo Degli Esposti, is made up of texts and images from over 300 contributors from Europe and the US, across three generations, involved in the activities of the Padiglione Architettura in EXPO Belle Arti of Vittorio Sgarbi, a programme by the Regione Lombardia hosted in the Grattacielo Pirelli during the EXPO 2015. They investigate the relationships between modern architecture, the city of Milan (Razionalismo, reconstruction, Tendenza, Radical Design, up to current research) and the city in general, between single and specific works and the large scale of the urban territory, in the contradictions between architecture autonomy and its dependence on specific place and historical time. The idea of MCM is that each capital of the Modern brings an original version of modernity in architecture: in the specific Milanese case, this kind of Modern is characterized by the simultaneous presence of abstract, systematic and syntactic features and an ontological conception of both buildings and architectural and urban voids.
