The Milan square: Creating the right mood

It is important for a city to have a minimum benchmark of aesthetic quality for its public areas.

People in cities have stressful lives. It is the authorities’ duty to ensure a minimum standard for all visible elements in a city. We put enormous effort in design and construction of our buildings, but leave the services and utilities to non-designers. Cities abroad take care in design of utility buildings and often call for design competitions for such structures.

The subway station at Duomo in Milan is a case in point.

The plan for the buildings above ground was based on a decision to only add supplementary constructions for improving the quality of the environment to the degree possible. Actions that would destroy or significantly change the existing buildings and structures were excluded.

Designed by architect Giuseppe Mengoni (starting in 1865) the square has now become an integral part of a Milanese “experience”.

While the form of the square is architecturally well-defined on the northern, eastern and southern sides, it is not so on the western side. Rectangular openings into the square are clearly marked out in the east, which is represented by a cathedral’s façade. One opening is created by the northern porticoes and one side of the cathedral, and the other by the other side of the cathedral and the Palazzo Arcivescovile, the Archbishop’s palace, initially and then by the top of the Palazzo Reale, the royal palace.

The latter opening widens into the enclosed space of Palazzo del Piermarini, the senate house. This space animates the basic rectangularity of the square without destroying it.

Waterfalls

The plan included construction of a monument with waterfalls on the western side at the approximate point at which the building designed by Mengoni was supposed to have been built. Thus, the area marked out by this side, the cathedral’s façade, and the northern and southern porticoes have turned out to be relatively square.

The monument is slightly longer than the cathedral’s entrance; it is relatively narrow, but it lies on an axis with the cathedral’s façade, the spire of the Madonnina and passage to the cathedral in the back.

Its axiality is emphasised by the tall, narrow opening of the base, which terminates in the arch of the central span of the open gallery located on top. In the middle of the opening, a waterfall covers the opening. Although the fountain is not a typical element of traditional Milanese architecture (as it is of Roman architecture), the city has always had a special relationship with water through its ring of Navigli (the now covered canals), basins and locks.

The waterfalls in the openings of the new building are also designed to recall the old urban relationship with water, in addition to representing a point of interest and a bit of movement within the static square.

To be continued