Building Houses,
Building Value.
Investigating commercial
housing through the work of
two Milanese real estate actors
(1960-2020).
Politecnico di Milano
School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering
Master of Science in Architecture - Built Environment - Interiors
Tutor: Prof. Gaia Caramellino
Co-tutors: Prof. Pier Paolo Tamburelli, Giulia La Delfa
Giulio Galasso
896491
a.a. 2019-20
Index
Index of the images Index of the drawings Abstract1 Investigating commercial housing 1.1 Why commercial housing
1.2 Analysing the residential complexes of two Milanese real estate actors
2 Società Generale Immobiliare 2.1 Context
2.1.1 Socio cultural context 2.1.2 Architectural context 2.2 Portrait of the company 2.2.1 History, structure and activity 2.2.2 Strategies and methods
2.3 The residential complexes of SGI 2.3.1 Overview of the realizations in Milan 2.3.2 Selected case studies
2.4 Three interpretative categories 2.4.1 Form of the buildings
2.4.2 Common areas 2.4.3 Apartments
4 Innovation through repetition: comparing two Milanese real estate actors 4.1 Premise: Innovation in repetition
4.2 What has changed in commercial housing 4.2.1 Two interpretation of the novelty
4.2.2 Performance versus observation 4.2.3 The disapperance of segregation 4.3 Satisfying a demand that changes in time Bibliography 4 5 7 9 11 12 95 96 96 98 103 103 104 111 112 120 162 162 164 165 169 170 170 170 182 202 206 208 17 18 18 22 30 30 31 36 36 46 86 86 88 90 3 Abitare Co. 3.1 Context
3.1.1 Socio cultural context 3.1.2 Architectural context 3.2 Portrait of the company 3.2.1 History, structure and activity 3.2.2 Strategies and methods
3.3 The residential complexes of SGI 3.3.1 Map of the realizations in Milan 3.3.2 Selected case studies
3.4 Three interpretative categories 3.4.1 Form of the buildings
3.4.2 Common areas 3.4.3 Apartments
Chapter 1
1, 2 Two Milanese residential complexes (pictures by the author) 3-17 Overview of reference books (covers of bibliographic references
Chapter 2
1-4 Domesticity in the 50s’ through advertisement (source: Ballotta, 2010) 5 Clip from Rocco e i suoi Fratelli, Rossellini, 1960
6 Clip from La Notte, Antonioni, 1961
7 Mixed-use building in Corso Magenta by GPA Monti (picture by M. Introini) 8 Housing in Via Nievo Caccia Dominioni (picture V. Martegani)
9 Mixed-use building in Corso Italia by Caccia Dominioni (picture V. Martegani)
10, 11 INA Casa neighbourhood in Cesate by F. Albini and I. Gardella (pictures by M. Introini) 12 Residential tower in Piazzale Biancamano, picture by S. Graziani
13 A residential block in Giardini La Viridiana, picture by S. Graziani
14 Promotional insertion of Giardini la Viridiana, published in Corriere della Sera, 26.09.79 15 Promotional insertion of Giardini la Viridiana by Immobiliare Ponti (source: De Pieri, 2014) 16-21 INA housing in viale Doria, Milan by G. and L. Muzio (pictures by the author)
22, 23 Two realizations abroad by SGI: Tower Victoria in Montreal and Washington at Landmark (source:
Pozzuoli, 2003)
24 Built cube meters by SGI in Milan between 1947 and 1965 (source: Realizzazioni, 1965) 25 Torre Velasca (Source: Pozzuoli, 2003)
26 Map of realization of SGI in Milan in 1965 (source: Realizzazioni, 1965)
27, 28 Picture and plan of the residential complex in Carimate (source: Società Generale Immobiliare,
1962)
29 SGI’s buildings published on “Realizzazioni e studi nel settore edilizio” between 1962 and 1973
(elaborated by the author)
30 Introductive page of Baldissera, (Source: Realizzazioni, 1962) 31 Introductive page of Vitruvio, (Source: Realizzazioni, 1962) 32 Introductive page of Corso Europa, (Source: Realizzazioni, 1962)
33 Masterplans of Viale Palmanova (source: Società Generale Immobiliare, 1962) 34 Introductive page of Via Tertulliano, (Source: Realizzazioni, 1969)
35 Introductive page of Aicardo, (Source: Realizzazioni, 1971) 36 Description of Fulvio Testi, (Source: Realizzazioni, 1970)
37 Plan and perspective view of Solari, (Source: Realizzazioni, 1966) Chapter 3
1-4 The houses of four Milanese young couples (source: Sartoretti, 2016) 5 Residenze Carlo Erba (source: www.eisenmann.com)
6 Residenze Hadid (source: www.city-life.it)
7-9 Images found in Instagram with the tag citylifemilano
10 Company presentation of Abitare Co. (source: www.abitareco.it) 11, 12, 13 Images published by Abitare Co. on its Instagram page
14-22 The online interior design configurator of Pryncipe residential complex
(source: https://www.princype.com/home-configurator)
23 Buildings realised by Abitare Co. between 2005 and 2020, published on www.abitareco.it (elaborated
by the author)
24, 25 Promotional brochure of Gambara Square
26-28 Introduction page of Olimpia Garden on www.abitareco.it
29-31 Introduction page of the promotional webpage of Olimpia Garden 32, 33 Introductive pages of the promotional booklet of Panoramical Living 34, 35 Introductive pages of the promotional booklet of Serlio Sette 36, 37 Promotional brochure of Noto 10
38 Plan of an apartment of Residenza Magnolia, published on a promotional booklet Chapter 4
p. 172-181 Photographic essay on the volumes of commercial housing
on the even pages pictures by the author - on the right pages pictures downloaded www.abitare.it
p. 186-193 Photographic essay on the atriums of commercial housing
on the even pages pictures by the author - on the right pages pictures downloaded www.abitare.it
p. 194-201 Photographic essay on the gardens of commercial housing
on the even pages pictures by the author - on the right pages pictures downloaded www.abitare.it and post-produced by the author
Index of the drawings
Chapter 2The source of all the drawings, images and information collected in the analytic sheets of each building are the volumes of Realizzazioni e studi nel settore edilizio, 1962-1973
p. 47-51 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Empoli
p. 52-55 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Ca’ Granda Nord p. 56-60 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Melozzo da Forlì p. 61-67 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Solari
p. 67-73 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Centro Romana p. 74-77 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Friuli
p. 78-81 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Mecenate
p. 82-83 Synthetic sheet of the volumes and the ground floor of the selected SGI residential complexes p. 84-85 Synthetic sheet of the apartments of the selected SGI residential complexes
Chapter 3
The source of all the drawings, images and information collected in the analytic sheets of each building are the webpage of Abitare Co. and the archive of the company itself.
p. 120-125 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Abitare Moneta p. 126-131 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Residenze Lumière p. 132-136 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Panoramical Living p. 137-141 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Gioia Garden p. 142-146 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Isola 10 p. 147-151 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Tito Livio 3 p. 152-157 Analytic sheet of a residential complex: Vivi Barona
p. 158-159 Synthetic sheet of the volumes and the ground floor of the selected Abitare Co. residential
complexes
p. 160-161 Synthetic sheet of the apartments of the selected Abitare Co. residential complexes Chapter 4
Drawings elebatorated by the author
p. 184-185 Hatched plans of the ground floor functions in the selected case studies
p. 204 Hatched plans of the apartments functions in the selected case studies
Abstract
In Milan, commercial housing constitutes a significant part of the built environment and it is going to increase its weight in the next future. Re-invented in the years of the economic miracle, it spread across the whole urban territory through the last seven decades, embodying the changing demand for housing and the emergence of different modes of inhabiting. Commercial housing is the field where companies deal with the urban scale, with legal requirements, with strategies of the market, and with the daily life and aspirations of a continuously changing urban middle class. The research investigates the architecture of commercial housing in Milan, focusing on how it has transformed since its emergence in the years of the economic miracle. Despite it has been constantly determined by the idea of building apartments that have to be sold as pure private properties, commercial housing has mutated in the last decades, to answer effectively to the social and cultural changes. This historiographic perspective allows to understand the reasons of the success of commercial housing as well as its limits in satisfying the domestic aspiration of Milanese inhabitants. It allows to position the role of the architect in a branch which is characterized by strict legal and economic requirements.
The research analyses the production of two exemplary Milanese real estate actors, Società Generale Immobiliare and Abitare Co., operating in the years of the miracle and the last two decades, respectively. The two companixes produced a significant number of houses spread across the whole municipality of Milan and they are between the most successful real estate actors in their period of activity. The research investigates seven complexes of each operator, adopting different research methods and multidisciplinary tools, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. Using graphic analysis as a research tool, the fourteen case studies are measured and drawn according with three categories, form of the buildings, common areas, and apartments. Starting from the drawings, the key elements are compared and critically investigated, with the support of photographic and iconographic essays.
A Milano, l’housing commerciale è una parte significativa dell’ambiente costruito e incrementerà il suo peso nel prossimo futuro.
Reinventato negli anni del miracolo economico, si è diffuso in tutto il territorio urbano negli ultimi settant’anni, assorbendo le trasformazioni nella domanda per abitazioni e l’emergere di diversi modelli di abitare. L’housing commerciale è il campo dove le società finanziarie si confrontano con la scala urbana, con i requisiti legali, con le strategie di mercato, e con le aspirazioni quotidiane di un ceto medio urbano che cambia continuamente.
La ricerca investiga l’architettura dell’housing commerciale a Milano, guardando a come si è trasformato sin dal suo emergere negli anni del miracolo economico.
Nonostante sia stato costantemente determinato dall’idea di costruire appartamenti da vendere come pura proprietà privata, l’housing commerciale è mutato negli ultimi decenni, per rispondere efficacemente a trasformazioni sociali e culturali. Questa prospettiva storiografica consente di comprendere le ragioni di successo dell’housing commerciale, così come i suoi limiti nel soddisfare le aspirazioni domestiche dei milanesi. Consente di posizionare il ruolo dell’architetto in un settore caratterizzato da requisiti economici e legali stringenti.
La ricerca analizza la produzione di due attori immobiliari milanesi esemplari, Società Generale Immobiliare and Abitare Co., che hanno operato rispettivamente negli anni del miracolo economico e negli ultimi due decenni. Le due società hanno prodotto un cospicuo numero di abitazioni nell’intero territorio della municipalità di Milano, e sono tra gli attori immobiliari più di successo nel loro periodo di attività. La tesi investiga sette complessi residenziali per ogni operatore, adottando diversi metodi di ricerca e strumenti multidisciplinari, combinando approcci quantitativi e qualitativi.
Utilizzando l’analisi grafica come strumento di ricerca, i quattordici casi studio sono misurati e disegnati rispetto a tre categorie, forma degli edifici, spazi comuni e appartamenti. A partire dai disegni, gli elementi chiave sono comparati e approfonditi attraverso la ricerca fotografica e iconografica.
Chapter 1
Investigating commercial
housing
1, 2 Two Milanese residential complexes (pictures by the author) 1
11
1.1 Investigating commercial housing
1) Investigating
commercial housing
1.1) Why commercial housing?
Milan is a city of houses. In the previous century, the city has offered fertile ground for the realization of remarkable multi-storey residential buildings (Bassoli, 2014). Several factors have contributed to this phenomenon: for its geographic position, Milan has been the point of contact between the vernacular Mediterranean traditions and the cosmopolitan lifestyle that was being imported from the more industrialized countries; considering its financial role, the city has been inhabited by a broad upper-middle class with a high demand for houses; the urban planning of the city has been characterized by a flexible grid structure, that together with the absence of height variation, presented a low obstacle to the construction of residential complexes. The years of the economic miracle represented the peak of the production of the upper-middle-class housing: in this period, the need for reconstructing the city after WWII bombings coincided with sudden economic growth. The so-called professionisti colti (Capitanucci, 2015) – who include Caccia Dominioni, Asnago Vender and Vico Magistretti – realized exemplary residential building installing an original dialogue between the international tendencies of modern architecture and the strongly characterized Milanese context. These buildings have been recently the object of several studies and publications, that promote their unique architectural qualities and portray domestic life in Milan (Pierini, 2017).
But the houses of Milan do not limit to this excellent production. Since the last century, together with the residences of the upper-middle class, Milan has been characterized by the construction of a large amount of multi-storey residential complexes, which address the large sector of the citizens which is not receiving social housing nor able to
buy luxury dwellings, what we can define middle class with all its internal articulation and chronologic transformations (De Pieri, 2014). Being realized for the real estate market, and following the ambition to reach a public which is as broadest as possible, we define these complexes as Commercial housing. In Milan, the design of social housing is connotated by the heroic purpose of providing well-being with a limited amount of means, and the design of luxury housing has gained a strong relationship with art, also for what concerns multi-storey blocks: considering these purposes these buildings have been the most challenging ground for architectural experimentation. Commercial housing, instead, lies forgotten in the urban fabric, as a silent mass that does not attract the interest of architectural criticism. In fact, under an architectural point of view, these buildings are not experimental nor original: they are developed for profit, and therefore they are repetitive and lowly iconic. For its strong relationship with the market, commercial housing leaves few spaces to the design activity of architects, and it has been stigmatized as the product of a building speculation culture (Secchi, 1984; Frampton, 2005).
Nevertheless, commercial housing is the most common form of accommodation of the Milanese middle class, and it represents the point of contact between the market economy and the daily life of millions of individuals. The figures that coordinate the design, the construction and the sale of commercial housing are real estate actors, which act as direct investors or as consultants for not-specialized investors of real estate operations (Crupi, 2019; Pozzuoli, 2003). They coordinate several professionals: figures involved in the design of the building, as architects, engineers, and interior
designers; companies and technicians involved in the construction of the building; financial analysts that evaluate the rentability of the operation and specialists involved in the advertisement and the sale of the housing units. Real estate actors have a strong tie to the social, economic and political context
where they operate because they are the subjects that ensure the rentability of each construction operation: therefore, they understand the needs of their public and at the same time they promote campaigns that influence its tastes and aspirations (Coiacetto, 2000). In other words, they please and educate their public, mediating local living culture and building traditions with international commercial tendencies.
Each real estate actor has its rationalities, strategies, modus operandi and agenda, that responds to the needs and the aspirations of a certain society, and that results in a coherent production of housing complexes, that can be analysed as the one of an architecture firm. We understand how through the real estate actors it is possible to group and analyse the several heterogenous commercial housing complexes that lie the Milanese urban area: this applies in particular to the operators that have been involved in the construction of several housing complexes. In the residential buildings realized by architects for individual clients, we can find alternative models of domestic life and innovative materials; in the realizations of real estate actors, we find instead strategies oriented towards the increase of the economic value of the house, based on the satisfaction of the needs and the aspirations of the potential buyers. The price of the land where commercial housing is built is determined by large scale economic factors, that are not influenced by the
individual real estate actors, who therefore devote their efforts to increase the rentability of their operation through the qualities of the buildings that they realize. Looking at the production of big real estate actors we can, therefore, understand how the needs and the domestic culture of a certain society in a certain period have taken physical shape.
1.2) Analysing the residential complexes of two Milanese real estate actors
Under these premises, this thesis analyses the residential complexes of two real estate actors, Società Generale Immobiliare and Abitare Co to reconstruct the relation
between architectural qualities and the socio-cultural context where it has been produced. The thesis combines methodologies
adopted in different types of the architectural publications to produce a body of knowledge on the production of the two operators: it looks in particular to the manual of floor plan of residential building (Ebner, 2009; Heckmann, 2017), that collects several residential buildings realized across the world classifying them by typology and extension and reporting their floor plans; to architecture photographic essays (Basilico, 2007; Kolbitz, 2017), that gives back atmospheres and material qualities of the spaces, enriching the description of commercial housing blocks; and finally to the classic bibliographic research, to reconstruct the history and the organization of the two actors, together with the context where they worked.
Among the several actors that operated and operate in Milan, observed looking at the literature (De Pieri, 2014) and the online real estate insertions, the research selects Società Generale Immobiliare and Abitare Co. because of their volume of production (more than 20 and more than 60 residential complexes, respectively), and of their heterogeneity in scale, organization, and degree of involvement in real estate operations. Both the companies work in phases of intense building activity in the city: the years of the economic miracle (Petrillo, 1992), when Italian middle class saw significant expansion, and consumerist lifestyle arrived in the city; and the last decade, when Milan is experiencing a new phase of intense building activity, driven by a new demographic and economic growth. The production of these two
companies allows evaluating how the social transformation that happened since post-war years affected the production of houses
Title of the paragraph 13 1.1
in Milan, identifying elements of continuity and discontinuity. The public of commercial housing has significantly changed between these two periods: in the 60s’ it was a broad but recognisable middle class, that corresponded approximately to all the third service workers and that was protected by the public institutions (De Pieri, 2014); today, instead, it is the aggregation of several minorities whose cultures and aspirations are not directly related to their buying power (Multiplicity, 2007). To these two different publics correspond two different organization: to the large institutionally promoted middle class, correspond a large company that had interests on the whole national territory and also abroad, SGI was investing and developing autonomously the whole construction process; to the heterogenous and fragmented Milanese inhabitants of today corresponds Abitare Co. is a local actor, that works as a consultancy company, hired by non-specialized
promoters, and not directly involved in the construction process.
Operating to satisfy the specific needs of a certain population, real estate actors crystallize the lifestyle of different generations of Milanese, transferring the cultural
differences that happened in time into the juxtaposition of residential complexes with significant differences. Adopting the point of view of the real estate actor, this research describes the residential complexes that have been built in one of the most important phases of expansion of Milan, at the very beginning of consumerist culture in the city and the ones that are currently built to satisfy a new phase of growth. The analysis of the two operators is therefore treated initially individually and the results are then compared in the conclusion of the work. Each operator is analysed following the same structure, which consists in four passages: the description of the socio-cultural and of the architectural context where the actor operated, under the point of view of the public of commercial housing and of the professional roles and duties of the architects, and based on sociological
literature; the description of the organization of the actor and of the methodologies that it adopts in the development and the sale of commercial housing; an overview and a map of the production of the actor in Milan and the presentation of its prominent realizations; the analysis of seven residential complexes realized by the actor, selected among its production looking at heterogenous locations and public. Dealing with residential complexes built in the years of the
miracle and with the ones currently under construction, means looking at different sources. All the materials used for the analysis of SGI has been collected through bibliographic research, analysing the journals published by the company during its year of activity, and during a photographic survey of the residential complexes. For what concerns Abitare Co., instead, the material has been collected through the promotional website of the company, through the interview of a manager and of the press office responsible for the company, and through the documents that have been provided by the company itself.
The case studies are analysed following three categories: the composition of the volumes, the shared spaces and the private spaces. These categories investigate the appearance of the building in the city, the quality of the shared spaces, which for their non-strictly functional purpose are dense of meaning for the inhabitants of the complexes, and the spaces of the apartments themselves, that represent the main result of the negotiation of the real estate actors with the daily life of the individual. The presence and the qualities of certain shared and private rooms are determined by the intersection of the demand, the value of land, the technical, urban regulation, and the construction technologies. The spaces of commercial housing are the main characters of the whole process of construction of commercial housing, from the design to the sale (Crupi, 2019). The main method of analysis adopted in the research is, therefore, the redrawing and the measurement of the plans of the residential complexes and the apartments.
7 9 5 3 8 10 6 4 3 Capitanucci, 2015 4 Caruso, 2016 5 Bassoli, 2014 6 Pierini, 2017 7 Caramellino, 2016 8 Sartoretti, 2016 9 De Pieri, 2014 10 Saunders, 2005 Overview of reference books
Title of the paragraph 15 1.1 15 17 13 11 16 18 14 12 11 Mocarelli, 2011 12 Bagnasco, 2016 13 Miller, 2015 14 Hitchcock, 1947 15 Ferracuti, 2016 16 Fernandez, 2011 17 Heckmann, 2017 18 Giedion, 1948 Overview of reference books
The buildings are firstly presented individually, through floor plans and axonometries, and then presented together in two comparative panels, one where their axonometries and ground floor plans are presented, and one where their apartment typologies are categorized by the number of bedrooms. The number of bedrooms is in fact an indicator of the number of inhabitants hosted by the apartments, and it allows to understand how the actor according with it defined and arranged the spaces for the performance of domestic activities.
Through the analysis of the plans and of the axonometries of the case studies, the thesis identifies the characters of the shared and private spaces of the residential complexes, interpreting them through the social and economic changes that affected the Milanese population and that have been largely investigated by scientific literature (Bagnasco, 2016; Multiplicity, 2007; Sartoretti, 2016) and which are confronted in the final chapter of the research. The comparison of the residential complexes of SGI and Abitare Co. is enriched through iconographic essays, that compare the pictures taken during a photographic survey of the housing of SGI and the renderings published by Abitare Co., and diagrams that provide an intuitive portrait of the transformation of commercial housing in Milan, juxtaposing key spaces, functional usage of the ground floor and images of the cultural context of the operators. Starting from this comparison the research draws a conclusion on the relation of commercial housing and real estate actors with time: in other words, it would investigate the possibilities of adaptation of real estate actors to different social conditions and the flexibility of commercial housing towards inhabitants with changing needs and aspirations.
Chapter 2
Building houses in the years of
the economic miracle: SGI
2.1. Context
2.1.1) Consumerism arrives in Italy: the years of the economic miracle
(socio cultural context)
In Milan commercial housing emerged as a significant phenomenon in the years following the end of the war, during the so-called Italian economic miracle. These words define a twenty-years long process during which the whole country experienced a strong phase of industrialization and production of wealth and radical social transformations happened (Foot, 2019). The economic miracle is the result of both international events and the diffusion of democratic values: after WWII Italy was the addresser of the Marshall Plan, a system of loan that the United States organized to restart the economy of the European countries destroyed by the war. Thanks to these loans, several enterprises emerged in Italy and the country not reconstructed what has been damaged by the war, but it also realized infrastructure and houses that were not existing before WWII. The US influenced life in the country also under an ideological point view, spreading the liberal and democratic values: large parts of the population became available to make efforts driven by the aspiration of reaching a more comfortable and stable lifestyle (Scrivano, 2013). Meanwhile, the country began its Republican history and saw the continuous governance of the Christian Democratic Party, which had a centrist position and addressed its policies especially towards the middle class.
Referring to this period of Italian history, the world middle class has a controversial definition: it includes in its definition heterogeneous groups as well-educated professionals and skilled workers, in other words, people that adopt significantly different ideologies and lifestyles, despite have a similar buying power (Bagnasco, 2016). The only element that the members of the middle class used to have in
common in this period is homeownership. Homeownership is par excellence an element that ensures social stability, strengthening the tie between the private and the nation: it was therefore protected and promoted by several policies. Among them, the most relevant measure is Tupini law, promulgated in 1949 and valid until 1970, that established a 25-years long fiscal exemption for the owners of non-luxury apartments (De Pieri, 2014). Big cities that experienced more than the others the transformations of this period of growth and Milan represented under several aspects the capital of the Italian economic miracle. It acquired quickly an image of “big modern city” and it had an offer of jobs that attracted many immigrants from the rural areas of the whole country: only in the years between 1955 and 1961, the province of Milan absorbed approximately 400.000 newcomers (Petrillo, 1992). Milan drained inhabitants from all the national territory, from Southern Italy as well as the municipalities around the city. When they arrived in the city, the immigrates often did not find the improved living conditions that they were expecting and were forced to accept informal dwellings or to share apartments with
people from their regions. If on one hand, a percentage of the population was living in poor condition, documented by the work of writers and film directors – e.g., the movies Miracolo a Milano by Vittorio De Sica and Rocco e i suoi fratelli - at the same time, the average wealth of all the households rose significantly and a new consumerist lifestyle emerged. Electrical appliances entered into a growing number of houses, and among them, television: the lifestyle of Milanese opened towards early globalized models (Scrivano, 2013).
This side of Milan in the years of the miracle has inspired also several movies and novels, as la Notte, by Michelangelo Antonioni, and Marcovaldo by Italo Calvino. If several critics underlined the criticalities of the transition towards modernity, it is also true that in Italy the globalized models were re-interpreted through the customs: this reflects in
Title of the paragraph 19 1.1
television programs as well as in the design of electric appliances (Sabatino, 2013). Despite the significant transformation of the lifestyle introduced by technology, middle-class households still coincided usually with traditional families. They were generally composed of four or five members and they were usually taking advantage of servants, in particular after the entrance of women in the world of work. The increase of the average wealth of Milanese family was not driven by an increase of the individual buying power, but to the fact that for the first time most of the families could take advantage of two salaries instead of one(Petrillo, 1992).
2.2) Housing scarcity, Architect-bureaucrats and building speculation (architectural context)
The growth of Milanese inhabitants implied also the growth of the demand for houses. The problem of the houses for the lower classes was faced by the direct intervention of the public institutions, whose main initiatives in this period was the INA Casa plan, a national program that promoted the construction of hundreds of social housing complexes between 1949 and 1963 (Melograni, 2015). It was the field of significant housing experimentations and involved the most successful Italian architects of the period (Adalberto Libera, Franco Ridolfi, and Ignazio Gardella among the others). If in the years of the miracle social housing has attracted the attention of the architectural debate, becoming the addresser of a generous amount of publications, the construction of the houses for the middle class was instead developed silently, being fully entrusted to private initiatives (De Pieri, 2014). The multi-storey residential block is the most durable trial of the success and the lifestyle of the Milanese middle class, being the vehicle of both the social aspirations of a large part of the city inhabitants and the densifications of the urban area. Nevertheless, it has not attracted the attention of the mainstream architecture discourse. These buildings have been always portrayed as the product of speculation:
more than an opportunity for harmonious growth of the city, the houses of the middle class have often been identified as something that damaged the image of the historical Italian cities (Statera, 1977).
Real estate actors are generally considered the author of a negative transformation of the city, but also the administration of the city of Milan actually pursued a policy of tolerance towards building speculation, believing that it would have helped to solve the dramatic housing demand (Petrillo, 1992). The general regulator plan released by the administration of the city in 1953 established an accessible legislative framework, with a high built volume index (10.20 cube meters per square meter). Residential blocks were erected homogenously across the whole city: in the centre several areas were left free by WWII bombings, and an intense activity of demolition of houses considered decrepit took place starting from 1951; in the periphery, several areas used for agriculture were quickly converted into residential areas, often ignoring the existing legislation: the general regulator plan of 1953 was often transgressed, following a practice that became famous as “rito ambrosiano”, and which consisted in the release of temporary licences that allowed the occupation of areas dedicated to different activities (Petrillo, 1992). The value of the buildable areas sharply increased: in 1962, the monetary of the whole buildable areas of the municipality of Milan coincided approximately with the sum of the capitals of all the Italian societies traded in the stock exchange. Homeownership was not only the satisfaction of a need but also a form of economic
investment: as a consequence, the number of homeowners tripled between 1951 and 1961 (Petrillo, 1992).
In this frenetic construction activity, the professional figure of the architect underwent a process of significant transformation. A significant division emerged between the mainstream architecture discourse, driven by the work of genius and dedicated to public or luxury clients, and the mass production
1
3 4
2
Title of the paragraph 21 1.1
5 Clip from Rocco e i suoi Fratelli, 6 Clip from La Notte 5
dedicated to the satisfaction of the housing demand. Despite he is referring to the US context, which is structurally different by the Italian one, Henry Russell Hitchcock identified the emergence of a new professional and impersonal role of the architect (Hitchcock, 1947). In an essay published in 1947, he distinguishes two types of architect, the architect-genius, that following the traditional professional characters produces masterpieces that continue to inspire the public, and the architect-bureaucrat, that work more as an employee in companies where the individual creativity is replaced by anonymity and unbiased quality. Hitchcock mentions, in particular, the large architectural practices, like TAC and SOM, where nobody introduces unexpected elements in the project, but architects are asked to follow intelligible design methods, without any ambition of innovation and invention. In Milan, this phenomenon assumed a peculiar declination. Together with the mainstream architecture culture, which was led by prominent figures as Ernesto Nathan Rogers and Giò Ponti, there was a significant number of talented architects involved in the construction of housing for the middle-upper classes. Caccia Dominioni, Asnago Vender, GPA Monti, Vito and Gustavo Latis are the authors of remarkable multi-storey residential buildings that decline modern languages with the Milanese tradition. This group of architects, that has been then referred at as professionisti colti, has been recently the object of researches with interesting results (Capitanucci, 2015; Pierini, 2017).
The production of the professionisti colti did not limit to a discrete group of luxury houses, but it significantly influenced the design of housing blocks for inhabitants with slightly lower buying power, middle class. This happened through two channels: what we can call the Milanese architect-bureaucrats acknowledged the value of these buildings and tried to replicate their features in vulgarized versions; professionisti colti personally participated in real estate operations for the middle class. E.g., Caccia
Dominioni is the author of the residential park “Giardini la Viridiana” built by Immobiliare Ponti in the years between 1968 and 1971 in Via delle Forze Armate (De Pieri, 2014). It consists of approximately 600 apartments distributed in nineteen blocks of different heights and, pursuing the idea of constituting an island of the middle class in the periphery of Milan, it is provided with shared facilities, a park, and commercial activities.
The language of professionismo colto has inspired several other realizations in the urban area of Milan, which became anonymous icons of the Milanese economic miracle. This applies in particular for the buildings that have been realized in the strategic points of the city and that, for this reason, have significant visibility in the city landscape. This is the case of the residential tower in Piazzale Biancamano, facing the Arena Brera (De Pieri, 2014). The group of investors that carried out the operation, the Immobiliare Piazzale Biancamano S.r.l., was able to realize a seventeen storeys tower taking advantage of the Milanese building regulations, that allowed to exceed building height limits in proximity with large open spaces. Acknowledging the significant opportunity offered by the location, the design of the building involved firstly a famous Milanese architect, Pietro Portaluppi, whose sketches have been developed by an engineer, Guido Baselli. Having considered the position, the promoter conceived the building as an apartment block for the upper-middle class. Already during its construction phase, the building has been fully sold to an insurance company, Assicuratrice Italiana S.p.A.: in the years of the miracle, in fact, insurance companies were demanded to own a real estate patrimony as a guarantee of their capital.
The Milanese real estate market has been therefore strongly characterized by the interventions of large financial groups, that were developing and buying residential complexes to diversify and consolidate their patrimony (Mocarelli, 2011).
Title of the paragraph 23 1.1
buying buildings that were built by
independent construction enterprises, the bigger ones were directly developing real estate operations. It is the case of Istituto Nazionale Assicurazioni (INA), which, in the years of the miracle, has built more than thirty residential complexes in the municipality of Milan. INA constituted a department specialized in real estate operation, that was taking care of the whole construction process, coordinating several different specialized professionals (Galasso, 2019). Being a national company, INA has carried out its real estate operations also with a representative purpose: following the architectural qualities of the headquarters spread across the whole country, the buildings realized by INA are usually
characterized by the usage of quality material and in Milan often involved architects with noticeable experiences.
The residential complex of an insurance company
A prominent example of the production of INA is the 200-flats housing block erected between 1962 and 1968 on the project of Giovanni and Lorenzo Muzio in Viale Andrea Doria, 17. Given its privileged location, bordering Piazzale Caiazzo, and the dimension of the plot, the residential complex has received special attention by the promoter, which conceived it for an upper-middle class of employees and free-lance professionals. Muzio created unique contamination of his monumental architectural language, that characterized his famous realizations in the years before WWII, with the topic of the modern residential complex: that means stone floors and radiant heating and at the same time plaster walls with steel-frame windows. Despite the apparently repetitive shape of the building, there is an impressive variety of apartment typologies, which are conceived functionally, without housemaid and distribution spaces. What emerges from the interviews of inhabitants of Isolato INA (Galasso, 2019) is that getting an apartment was a privilege reserved only to people with a political
contact with the institute: rents were competitive and, although there was an open procedure for the selection of the tenants, it was difficult to get an apartment. This oral trial is verified by several recommendation letters that were sent to INA to support some applications, which are preserved in INA Assitalia historical archive in Rome. All the interviewed inhabitants appreciate the quality of the finishing of the building and recognise its architectural ambitions. Under a technological point of view, the building is provided with comfortable plants that represent the state of art of the domestic technology of the ‘60s. The residential complex has nine staircases, each one with a double elevator, and it is provided with approximately 200 parking places distributed in two underground stories.
INA was keeping the ownership of the whole building, and it was punctually administrating its common areas, with an efficient service of maintenance and severe behaviour code. The inhabitants that have been living in the residential complex since its opening remind the atmosphere of high quality that was characterizing it: there were two porters taking care of the stable and, despite the neighbourhood was characterized by a more dangerous frequentation, the common areas of the building were well-maintained. When in 1998 the Institute dismissed its own real estate patrimony, the apartments have been sold to several owners and the building’s population gradually changed. A new population of temporary inhabitants substituted part of the population that was living in the complex since its completion and that was forced to move because it was not able to buy the apartments. According to the interviewed porter of the complex, there is a continuous activity of renovation of the apartments designed by Muzio, which are often also divided into smaller units to profit from the increased cost of the land.
The passage of ownership of Isolato INA took, on one hand, the advantages and of the safety granted by the acquisition of the house, and on the other hand, it reduced the
budget for maintenance work of common areas has dramatically reduced. The history of the garden of Isolato INA is an example of how the quality of the daily life of a group of middle-class inhabitants has changed with the passage of ownership from a single institution to several privates. The current porter, Mr Francesco S., who arrived in Isolato INA in 1998 remembers it “There was a beautiful garden. Flower, roses, hortensia, many hortensia. Here it was full of lilies, nobody used to get close. There was automatic irrigation, it was beautiful. This garden had a purely representative value, being INA ensuring the respect of the rules of the common areas. As Miss Zena B. remembers “before INA sold the building, it was forbidden to play in the inner
courtyard, the ladies were sitting outside on the walkways to chat.” When the garden of the complex was temporarily removed for solving the problem of water infiltration in underground garages, the assembly of the condominium decided not to reintroduce vegetation on it, to reduce the maintenance costs. They just restored a grass field which is barely over the minimum level of dignity. Condominium assembly promotes generally intervention that grants the correct functioning of the building and that has to be done following the prescription of the Municipality of Milan, but it cannot take care of the elements that represent the social status of its inhabitants.
Title of the paragraph 25 1.1
7 Mixed-use building in Corso Magenta by GPA Monti (picture by M. Introini) 8 Housing in Via Nievo Caccia Dominioni (picture V. Martegani) 9 Mixed-use building in Corso Italia by Caccia Dominioni (picture V. Martegani) 7
9
10, 11 INA Casa neighbourhood in Cesate by F. Albini and I. Gardella (pictures by M. Introini)
10
Title of the paragraph 27 1.1
12 Residential tower in Piazzale Biancamano, picture by S. Graziani 13 A residential block in Giardini La Viridiana, picture by S. Graziani 14 Promotional insertion of Giardini la Viridiana, published in Corriere della Sera, 26.09.79
15 Promotional insertion of Giardini la Viridiana by Immobiliare Ponti (source: De Pieri, 2014)
12 13
16, 17, 18 INA housing in viale Doria, Milan by G. and L. Muzio (pictures by the author)
16 17
18
Title of the paragraph 29 1.1
19, 20, 21 INA housing in viale Doria, Milan by G. and L. Muzio (pictures by the author) 20
19
2.2) Società Generale
Immobiliare
2.2.1) Overview of the history and the activity
If INA was developing housing as a secondary asset, there were also big societies that were purely devoted to it: among them, there is Società Generale Immobiliare (SGI). Founded in 1862 and active until 1988, Società Generale Immobiliare went through several
transformation processes during its lifetime: in its beginning, it was mostly a financial group, but it gradually turned its interest in the management of the construction works (Pozzuoli, 2003). This process culminated in the immediate post-war years, when the director Aldo Samaritani arranged a structure devoted to the whole construction process, to answer to the strong housing demand. SGI carried out researches on the design and construction process, which had an impact also on the Italian national legislation. In the peak of its activity, the company reached a significant volume of affairs, being involved in the realization of iconic buildings also abroad, as in the case of the Watergate residential complex in Washington D.C., and Victoria Tower in Montreal.
In the years between 1945 and 1975, the company realized in Italy 710 buildings for the real estate market (26000 apartments), and it cooperated with public institutions, realizing 9710 apartments of social housing (Pozzuoli, 2003). It completed interventions of different scales and dedicated to broad sectors of the Italian population. Despite its interests were spread across the whole national territory, SGI was mainly active in Rome, where it has its own headquarter and it played also a political role. In Rome, the company realized entire neighbourhoods, that included housing, services, and commercial spaces: it is the case of Casalpalocco, an “integrated neighbourhood”, built the periphery between Rome and the seaside location of Ostia, conceived a colony for
the middle class that was working in the city (Bonomo, 2006). In Milan, where it also completed several building sites, the activity of the company is comparable instead with the one other large real estate actors active in those years, as it followed common practices of acquisition and development of parcels. If in the 50s’ the company participated also in the construction of landmarks like Torre Velasca in Piazza Missori, in the 60s’ its interests moved almost completely towards the construction of residential complexes (Pozzuoli, 2003). The production of SGI is therefore spread homogenously across the whole Milanese urban area, interesting the city centre with punctual iconic interventions and the periphery with residential complexes that often colonized what was agricultural land.
2.1.5) From design to sale: the organization of SGI
In order to manage the whole construction process, SGI was employing a large number of professionals, with different specializations. The company was organized in a central design department and in regional offices that were involved in the actual realization of the building. The central design departments were organized in four units, respectively: Land Affairs, Real Estate Operations Italy, Real Estate Operations abroad and Technical Office (Pozzuoli, 2003). The Land Affairs department was involved in the acquisition of areas and in the bureaucratic process for their development; while the Real Estate Operations Italy department hosted the Commercial Service, which formulated the topic of the project according to its research on housing trends and it organized the sale of the completed apartments; the Technical Office, which was divided into research units and design units and took care of the editorial activity of the company. Moreover, there was a department for the administration of the completed buildings, which kept active the relations with the buyer after the sale, to satisfy his requests for modifying the apartment and to manage the associations of the inhabitants for the maintenance of
Title of the paragraph 31 1.1
common areas. The construction phase was managed from the regional offices of the company, while the commercial activity articulated in Sale Offices created per each building site. SGI promoted innovative practices for the sale of the apartments, organizing large advertisement campaign and realizing furnished fac-simile apartments that could be visited by potential buyers before then the completion of the houses.
SGI was operating almost autonomously, cooperating with sister companies, as Sogene (involved in the realization of the load-bearing structure of the buildings), and with renowned architecture offices. SGI involved leading architects both in the realization of landmarks in the city centre, as in the case of BBPR with Torre Velasca, and in the realization of houses for the upper-middle class, as in the case of Caccia Dominioni and Castiglioni brothers for a residential complex in via Baldissera (Società Generale Immobiliare, 1962). For the first time in Italy, the company introduced the figure of the project manager who was coordinating the several offices involved in each project. The design process was driven by a preliminarily defined “project topic” that established the starting point and goals of the intervention. The architects involved had certain design freedom, both if they were hired by the company or if they were external firms. As we have seen this freedom allowed BBPR to realize one of the key buildings in the international architectural debate of the ‘50s.
Thanks to the possibility of controlling the whole building process, SGI was able to experiment innovative solutions for both what concerns construction systems - with the introduction of factory-produced components - and innovative apartments solutions, as the convertible house, an apartment layout with fixed bathroom and kitchen and the possibility to easily transform the division of the space (Pozzuoli, 2003). Together with the experimentation of new combinations of architecture and structural forms, SGI was also experimenting new forms of interaction
with its potential buyers. The company published a booklet with stickers of standard pieces of furniture is scale, that the clients could use to think to the interiors of our future apartments (Società Generale Immobiliare, 1970). But the experimentation of the
company arrived also at the urban scale, with the realization of integrated neighbourhoods, new settlements that generally colonized agricultural land in proximity with
infrastructure, and that consisted of a broad variety of housing typologies, shared facilities, commercial activities, and parks.
The most advertised residential complex of this type, that the company has realized in a small town close to Milan, is the residential park in Carimate (Società Generale
Immobiliare, 1962). Surrounding an existing castle, the residential park of Carimate occupied extensively a 3.458.000 sqm plot, and it was constituted of 2.545.090 m3 of houses and shared facilities. The group of houses, which were spread all across the territory, were mostly composed of single-family houses with garden; as the residential park was also conceived for touristic activities, together with the houses there was a large number of commercial and sports facilities, which included a swimming pool and a golf club. SGI conceived this intervention for a middle class that was looking for a high-quality natural environment in proximity to Milan. The quality is therefore high, in particular for what concerns the shared facilities: for their design, the company involved an architect that was actively taking part in the Milanese architecture and design discourse, Ludovico Magistretti.
The company promoted the publication of two journals between the 50s’ and 70s’: “Quaderni della società generale immobiliare”, that presented recent buildings and publications realized in Italy and abroad, and “Realizzazioni e studi nel settore edizio”, that collected on a yearly basis the completed buildings or in course of completion by SGI. For its centenary, it also promoted the publication of the volume
“Cent’anni di edilizia: 1862-1962” that analysed the real estate production from the beginning of the national history. Moreover, SGI contributed to the update of Italian legislation, and to the introduction of a set of Technical Building Code. At the same time, thanks to its Commercial Office, the company understood and oriented its production
towards market trends and needs, while thanks to its Sale Offices active directly on the construction site, it was able to establish a direct relation with the client, allowing him to modify his apartment before the completion of the construction site.
Title of the paragraph 33 1.1
22, 23 Two realizations abroad by SGI: Tower Victoria in Montreal and Washington at Landmark (source: Pozzuoli, 2003)
24 Built cube meters by SGI in Milan between 1947 and 1965 (source: Realizzazioni, 1965) 25 Torre Velasca (Source: Pozzuoli, 2003) 26 map of realization of SGI in Milan in 1965 (source: Realizzazioni, 1965)
24 25
Title of the paragraph 35 1.1
27, 28 Picture and plan of the residential complex in Carimate (source: Società Generale Immobiliare, 1962) 27
2.3) The residential
complexes of SGI in
Milan
2.3.1)Overview of the realizations in Milan
The activity of SGI in Milan was extremely intense in the decades after the war. As we have seen, the company took part in the realization of both city landmarks and residential complexes, and it also participated through its sister companies to the realization of public buildings of different entities. A partial view on the activity of SGI in the city is published in the number of “Realizzazioni e studi nel settore edilizio” of 1965. The map shows diagrammatically 32 intervention in the city, defining them through the address and including also projects that have not been realized. Despite its lack of precision, this map provides an image of the heterogeneity of the locations developed by SGI. Out of the 32 buildings, 9 are inside the first Milanese traffic ring, 14 between the first and the second, and 9 outside the second. This image is accompanied by a diagram that shows the number of cube meters over the ground that the company has realized in the city from 1947 to 1965: starting from zero, SGI has realized in less than twenty years more than 2.300.000 cube meters in the urban area of Milan. The most evident trial of this intense activity is the recurrence of materials, colours and facade composition of the residential complex of SGI across the whole urban area.
Being structured as a real estate company where no individuality emerges on the other, SGI elaborated effective building typologies that it has repeated introducing with the variation that consider the site and the building regulations. The interventions dedicated to upper classes represent an exception because leading architects external to the company had the possibility, in this case, to use their architectural language to produce a recognisable added value of the building.
For all the rest of the cases, instead, the architects hired by SGI could take arbitrary decisions only for what concerns the
volumetric scheme of the residential complex. The features of the buildings are a direct consequence of their location: starting from the location, the commercial office of SGI identified the potential buyers and chose which typologies develop, referring to its research office and its own successful realization (Pozzuoli, 2003); the volume of the buildings is then the result of the combination and the extrusion of these typologies, that are repeated from the first to the last storey of the building without relevant variations. Materials and construction systems were selected following the prescriptions of the research department of the company. In the majority of the cases, the residential blocks realized by SGI have not been published anywhere else than in
“Realizzazioni e Studi nel Settore edilizio”. The review has been published yearly from 1958 to 1973: in this interval of fifteen years, eighteen different building complexes realized in the municipal area have been published. The eighteen buildings, documented through quantitative descriptions, pictures of different levels of completion and typical floor plan, have been mapped on the following page. Among them, only two are not residential complexes. For what concern the other sixteen, it is possible to classify them looking at their location. It is answering to the location that SGI determined the potential inhabitant of the residential complex, and as a consequence selected the apartment typologies and the materials to use. At the same time, the dimension of the plot determined the number of apartments that composed the residential complex and consequentially the dimensions and the qualities of collective spaces. Considering the two Milanese circulation rings, we can define four areas, among which are selected seven case studies: the research investigates two buildings in proximity with the borders of the municipal area, two in proximity with the second circulation ring, two between the first and the second and one into the first.
Title of the paragraph 37 1.1
1 Via Empoli 2 Ca’ granda Nord 3 Viale Fulvio Testi 4 Viale Palmanova Nord 5 Viale Palmanova Sud 6 Via Vitruvio
7 Via Baldissera 8 Piazza Amati 9 Via Melozzo da Forlì 10 Corso Europa 11 Via Solari
12 Via Solari-Via Bergognone
13 Via Friuli 14 Centro Romana 15 Via Tertulliano 16 Via Mecenate 17 Via Aicardo 18 Via dei Missaglia
29 SGI’s buildings published on “Realizzazioni e studi nel settore edilizio” between 1962 and 1973 29
30
Title of the paragraph 39 1.1
31
32
Title of the paragraph 41 1.1
33
34
Title of the paragraph 43 1.1
35
36
Title of the paragraph 45 1.1
37
2.3.2) Presentation of the selected case studies
The selected cases are presented through their drawings and plans in the next chapter. Following the nomenclature adopted by SGI itself in “Realizzazioni e studi nel settore edilizio”, their identified through the name of their street.
The first two case studies, located in proximity with the municipal borders are Empoli and Mecenate. Empoli is a residential complex composed of ten equal seven-storey towers composed freely into a park, and three linear blocks, with one longer than the other two mirrored, composed to create a spacious square. Together with the complex in via dei Missaglia, this residential complex is the closest to the idea of integrated
neighbourhood in the municipal area of Milan. The extension of the plot, and its location in a particularly peripheral area - in particular before the recent construction of Metro 5 – resulted in the construction of a church on the square formed by three linear buildings and in the presence of commercial activities in the two shorter linear buildings. Mecenate has instead a different size. It is fact
composed of only four ten-storey towers, that have very similar rectangular plans. One of the four towers hosts on the ground floor the entrance space of the complex and another one hosts commercial activities.
For what concerns residential complexes that are located in proximity with the second circulation ring, the thesis investigates the cases of Ca’ granda nord and Tertulliano. The first one occupies a small plot, being composed of three blocks and being adjacent to other residential buildings. The three volumes are arranged around a courtyard, which is also crossed by the street that enters the garage. Taking advantage of its strategic position and its distance from other built parcels, the complex has a significantly high density, all the blocks are nine storeys high, despite the small courtyard that it contains. Instead, Melozzo da Forlì occupies a larger plot with a lower density. It is composed of three long nine-storey blocks arranged around a large garden.
The quality of the finishing of the two case is similar, being both Ca’ Granda Nord and Melozzo da Forlì cladded with ceramic tiles. The complexes are composed by the same amount of cube meters, nevertheless they occupy plot with two significantly different dimensions: SGI has therefore structured two different offers of garden and common areas.
A different situation is found in the area between the two Milanese circulation rings. Two case studies are selected in this area: Friuli and Solari. The dimension of these residential complexes is comparable with the one of Ca’ Granda Nord and Melozzo da Forlì, respectively. What at a first glance emerges is the larger investment in the finishing materials and in the decoration of the buildings: in Friuli, three volumes are cladded with ceramic tiles and all the windows are provided with a prefabricated frame. In Solari, instead, the ground floor of the buildings facing the street in stone and the rest of the buildings is cladded with brick-shaped tiles with different columns and decorative patterns.
Finally, the research investigates a residential complex built into the first circulation ring of Milan, Centro Romana, adjacent with the first circulation ring. The building complex occupies a large plot that is characterized also by the presence of a piece of the ancient city wall of Milan, and which faces on the large crossroad of Porta Romana. Taking advantage of this location, SGI has developed nine blocks: two seven-storey and two six-storey blocks facing on viale Sabotino, four nine-storey blocks inside the plot, and a tower facing on the crossroad of Porta Romana. This residential complex is the closest one to the central area of Milan, which has not been developed with the participation of leading architects external to the company (as in the case of Baldissera, designed by Caccia Dominioni and Castiglioni brothers, and Corso Europa, designed again by Caccia Dominioni).
Empoli 1.
Urban blocks with adjacencies Ca’ Granda Nord
3. Free-standing linear blocks Melozzo da Forlì 4. economico medio signorile medio economico Mixed: linear blocks
and towers
Name of the complex Building typologies Classification by SGI
Towers medio signorile Mecenate
7.
Irregular volumes medio signorile Solari
6.
Free-standing linear
blocks medio signorile Friuli
5.
Mixed: linear blocks
and towers signorile Centro Romana
Selected case studies SGI
Empoli 1.
Urban blocks with adjacencies Ca’ Granda Nord
3. Free-standing linear blocks Melozzo da Forlì 4. economico medio signorile medio economico Mixed: linear blocks
and towers
Name of the complex Building typologies Classification by SGI
Towers medio signorile Mecenate
7.
Irregular volumes medio signorile Solari
6.
Free-standing linear
blocks medio signorile Friuli
5.
Mixed: linear blocks
and towers signorile Centro Romana
Address: Piazza San Giuseppe, 14
Year of publication: 1965
Designer: Società Generale Immobiliare
Classification by SGI: economico (low-cost)
Total volume: 50,965 m3
Surface of the plot: 22,105 sqm
N. Buildings: 13
N. apartments: 196
Original description:
Nel decorso anno sono stati ultimati i primi 6 edifici comprendenti quelli che racchiudono la piazza antistante la Chiesa Parrocchiale in costruzione. Sono ora in cantiere i rimanenti 7 fabbricati.
(The firsts 6 buildings have been completed in the last year, including the one that enclose the square with the Church under construction. the 7 remaining buildings are under construction.)
1. Empoli
CM E G P C
ap S
Commercial Entrance Green Area Parking Circulation
Apartment Shared Facilities
Ground floor plan and axonometry
CM E G P C ap S P P P P P P P G G G G G G E E E C C CE E E E E C C E C C C E E C E C E C E C E C E C E C E C C E C E C C ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap 10 20 50 m
Typical floor plans 3 6 8 1 5 4 7 11 12 13 2 9 10 ap A ap D ap D ap D ap D ap E ap E ap F ap F ap F ap F ap B ap B ap C C C C C C ap D ap D ap D ap D ap E ap F ap F ap E C C C 5 10 25 m Typical plan Buildings 1-10 Floors 1-7 310 sqm ap A 1 ap B 2 ap C 2 Typical plan Building 11 Floors 1-6 910 sqm ap D 4 ap E 2 ap F 4 Typical plan Buildings 12-13 Floors 1-6 700 sqm ap D 4 ap E2 ap F2
51
Typical floor plans
3 6 8 1 5 4 7 11 12 13 2 9 10 ap A ap D ap D ap D ap D ap E ap E ap F ap F ap F ap F ap B ap B ap C C C C C C ap D ap D ap D ap D ap E ap F ap F ap E C C C 5 10 25 m Typical plan Buildings 1-10 Floors 1-7 310 sqm ap A 1 ap B 2 ap C 2 Typical plan Building 11 Floors 1-6 910 sqm ap D 4 ap E 2 ap F 4 Typical plan Buildings 12-13 Floors 1-6 700 sqm ap D 4 ap E2 ap F2 L L BD BL BL BL BD BD BT BT K K D C C L BD K BT C E L K E BD BT C BD BT L K E C BD BT L K E C BD BD BT BL C D E K L BD BT A T
Balcony Corridor Deposit Entrance Kitchen Living room
Bedroom Bathroom Anteroom Tinello Apartment typologies 2 5 10 m Apartment A 76 sqm Apartment B57 sqm Apartment C 53 sqm Apartment D61 sqm Apartment E 61 sqm Apartment F78 sqm
Address: Viale Ca’ Granda, 2
Years of publication: 1962, 1965, 1966
Designer: Società Generale Immobiliare
Classification by SGI: signorile (refined)
Total volume: 191,300 m3
Surface of the plot: N. Buildings: 10
N. apartments: 268
Original description (1962): L’iniziativa è condotta per conto della Società Immobiliare Fleo su area risultante dalle demolizioni di vecchi fabbricati fra il viale FIlippetti ed il viale Sabotino. L’edificio a torre, elevato a 24 piani, e due edifici sul viale Sabotino, sono ultimati. I restanti quattro fabbricati, che completeranno l’iniziativa realizzata in conformità di una volumetria convenzionata con il Comune, sono attualmente in corso di progettazione.
(The operation is led on behalf of Società Immobiliare Fleo, on an area that resulted from the demolition of old buildings between viale Filippetti and viale Sabotino. The 24-storey tower buildings and two buildings on viale Sabotino are completed. The four remaining buildings are currently in design phase, and they will complete the operation according to the volumes agreed with the Municipality)
2. Centro Romana
Mixed: linear blocks and towersCM E G P C
ap S
Commercial Entrance Green Area Parking Circulation
Apartment Shared Facilities
Ground floor plan and axonometry
CM P P P P P P G G E E E C C C C C C C C C ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap ap 10 20 50 m
Typical floor plans 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 5 10 25 m Typical plan Buildings 1-10 Floors 1-7 310 sqm ap A 1 ap B2 ap C2 Typical plan Buildings 1-10 Floors 1-7 310 sqm ap A 1 ap B2 ap C2 Typical plan Buildings 1-10 Floors 1-7 310 sqm ap A 1 ap B2 ap C2 Typical plan Buildings 1-10 Floors 1-7 310 sqm ap A 1 ap B2 ap C2 Typical plan Buildings 1-10 Floors 1-7 310 sqm ap A 1 ap B 2 ap C 2 ap A ap G C C ap E ap D ap D ap E ap H C ap B ap B ap B ap B ap B ap C ap C ap B C ap A C ap F ap F C Typical plan Buildings 12-13 Floors 1-6 700 sqm ap D 4 ap E 2 ap F 2 ap I C C C ap L ap M ap N ap O ap P
55
Typical floor plans
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 5 10 25 m Typical plan Buildings 1-10 Floors 1-7 310 sqm ap A 1 ap B2 ap C2 Typical plan Buildings 1-10 Floors 1-7 310 sqm ap A 1 ap B2 ap C2 Typical plan Buildings 1-10 Floors 1-7 310 sqm ap A 1 ap B2 ap C2 Typical plan Buildings 1-10 Floors 1-7 310 sqm ap A 1 ap B2 ap C2 Typical plan Buildings 1-10 Floors 1-7 310 sqm ap A 1 ap B 2 ap C 2 ap A ap G C C ap E ap D ap D ap E ap H C ap B ap B ap B ap B ap B ap C ap C ap B C ap A C ap F ap F C Typical plan Buildings 12-13 Floors 1-6 700 sqm ap D 4 ap E 2 ap F 2 ap I C C C ap L ap M ap N ap O ap P L BL BL E E D BT BD L K BL L BD BD BT BT D E E BT L E C D BT K L E C A C K T BD BD BD L BL BL BL BT BT BT BD BD BT C BT A K T C BD BD BT BL C D E K L BD BT A T
Balcony Corridor Deposit Entrance Kitchen Living room
Bedroom Bathroom Anteroom Tinello Apartment typologies 2 5 10 m Apartment A 76 sqm Apartment B 57 sqm Apartment C 53 sqm Apartment D 61 sqm Apartment E 61 sqm Apartment F 78 sqm
