Author: Orsina Simona Pierini

What gives unity to an interior design project? Beyond the coherence of materials, it is the use of color that gives character and identity to domestic space; each architect, each era has its own palette, where the floor, walls, and ceiling are composed with the dominant hues of the chosen materials.

If the twentieth century and early rationalism fought their battle between pastel shades and primary colors, the weight of the times and of war was tinged with greens and browns. The explosion of optimism brought back blues, mauves, and pinks, while the Viennese use of black and white was recovered to emphasize the graphic quality of forms. Gio Ponti is brighter, Viganò more elegant, Sottsass more contrasting. When the home becomes an artist’s canvas, color is its instrument. Some architects are directly associated with a particular tone, and vice versa: Caccia Dominioni’s red is so different from the red that invades homes in 1968. The percentage and density of color increase more and more up to the 1970s, when the monochrome home is completely immersed in dark blues and browns.

80 double-page spreads feature a brief description of the interior, several images of the spaces, and on the right-hand page, the color palette for floors, walls, ceilings, and furnishings, providing at a glance the chromatic essence of each environment. The entries are grouped by decade and preceded by a brief summary of the “spirit” of the decade and its color range. The book opens with an introduction by Stefanie Wettstein and closes with a piece by Chiara Mazzola on palettes. All texts are in both Italian and English.

Il libro sugli anni d’oro della architettura milanese – il periodo che va dalle prime sperimentazioni della Ca’ Brütta di Giovanni Muzio alle ultime opere del Moderno negli anni Settanta – torna in una nuova edizione rivisitata graficamente, stampata su carta uso mano e in edizione rilegata.

La Milano delle opere di Terragni, Ponti, Portaluppi, Lingeri, Asnago e Vender, Figini e Pollini, Caccia Dominioni, Bottoni, Gardella, BBPR, Zanuso, Magistretti e molti altri architetti che hanno reso Milano un museo a cielo aperto del Novecento.

In circa 80 schede il libro ridisegna planimetrie, piante e prospetti degli edifici, in modo da cogliere sia il linguaggio delle facciate sia le soluzioni abitative. Il risultato di un lavoro di ricerca che gli autori hanno condotto con un team del Politecnico di Milano. Ogni edificio è accompagnato da una o più fotografie di Stefano Topuntoli scattate per l’occasione e da materiale di repertorio.

Il volume, introdotto da Cino Zucchi – noto architetto e studioso dell’architettura milanese, è accompagnato da due saggi critici degli autori che collocano la stagione milanese nel più ampio contesto dell’architettura del XX secolo. Una mappa localizza gli edifici nel contesto cittadino.

Completano il volume un’ampia bibliografia a cura di Maurizio Grandi e, in appendice, la traduzione dei testi in inglese.

For the first time, a book enters the homes of Milan and describes the development of interiors from the advent of modernity to the season of post-modernism. The volume is in two languages Italian/English.

The authors have conducted vast and innovative research work, combing through period magazines, the archives of architects and photographers, and the investigations of Triennale, noticing that the journey of interior architecture has intermingled with the accelerations of Arts Avant-gardes and the emergence of a new role for objects. Italian design comes also from here.

The elegant and particular modernity of some Milanese masters, such as Franco Albini, Ignazio Gardella and Luigi Caccia Dominioni subsequently gives way to the experiments and international approaches of Joe Colombo, Ettore Sottsass, Vitoriano Viganò and Nanda Vigo, while each decade defines its own common language, interpreted by different personalities such as Magistretti and Minoletti; Mangiarotti and Morassutti, Zanuso, and by the Latis and Monti brothers, who share the “Milanese canon” in which elegance and practicality are combined. An intimate and reserved portrait of Milan emerges, sometimes predictable and often unexpected–a new look at the city.