Page 29 - Milano Periferia

Via Mac Mahon, Via Tibaldi, Via Spaventa; between 1911 and 1912 those
of Via Lulli, Viale Lombardia, Vial Cialdini (for tram workers). The first
four groups were provided for by the Municipality through its technical
offices, the other four were built by the "lstituto per le case popolari o d
economiche di Milano" (Milan Popular or Cheap Houses Institute) created
in 1908 by the Municipality itself which assigned to it, as a capital, the
housing quarters already built and many other areas in various parts of
the territory. After the pause of the war the Institute began again to build:
so rose the four quarters of Campo dei Fiori, Baravalle, Tiepolo and Gran
Sasso, sited in different parts of the town. In 1920, pending the lodging
crisis, three new quarters were added to the town circle at Porta Genova,
Porta Vittoria and Porta Magenta and others shortly afterwards in Via
Pascoli, Botticelli, Del Sarto, Monza, Friuli. Municipality, Popular Houses
Institute and State lent a hand to each other to carry out a town-planning
scheme with some improvements in comparison with that of 1912, not
always using the necessary caution in demolishing decayed buildings and
creating a great deal of discontent and eviction; anyhow the financed and
carried out about 10.000 new habitations between 1926 and 1927. The
"lstituto per le case popolari" alone could count at that time on 28.000
dwellings. In those years the number of workers resident in Milan reached
the figure of 200.000; the big houses where they lived (now in a ramsha-
ckle condition inside) bore that imprint half-way between a familiar liberty
and art-deco which is characteristic and still persistent in Milan, in spite
of the styles which spread here later, often awkwardly, sprung up from
rationalism dominating in Germany, France and Spain, so that the puristic
model of Le Corbusier suffered, being constrained ad usum delphini, that
is of the province. Such imprint well or otherwise, whether you like it or
not, constantly accompanies the building development of years which were
not yet completely dominated by the fascist architectural style of Piacen-
tini, Portaluppi and Semenza, whose monumental emphatic rhetoric makes
even "Broglio style" appear more respectful of tradition.

Unbelievable, but true and proved: the Municipality encouraged co-opera-
tive and private Bodies, widely placing at the builders’ disposal the muni-
cipal housing lands at special favourable prices, with the only premise
of immediate building. Were those times so different from ours of sinister
robbery?

It is certainly true that the Milan of fifty years ago, though ignorant of
ecology and environment theories, was not lacking in some planning pro-
tection: an "lstituto per le case economiche" (Cheap Houses Institute)
derived from the oider Popular Houses Institute looked over the building
of cottages which were to be allotted as a private property to the asso-
ciates with a long-term amortization, to favour also the new middle-class
savers wishing to have a house of their own and to encourage small pro-
perty; a society entitled "'Albergo Popolare" (Popular Home), building
decorous cheap boarding-houses, aimed at taking away many people from
very mean private rooms, trom barns and stables, providing a modest but