TWO RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS IN THE BRERA DISTRICT

Although Milan is definitely my city, my ideal city would perhaps be a mixture of those hundred or so beautiful Italian cities and towns which together embodied the idea of the city in Italy some ten centuries ago before spreading throughout Europe and to the rest of the world.
A city where the huddled houses express a sense of community and give shape to streets, broad and narrow, winding or straight, according to a much more intricate and profound logic than that of traffic flows, a logic whose traces will remain for ever.
A city where houses and monuments, as the lasting  expression of citizens’ pride, create open places and squares which, with the streets, arcades, fountains and loggias, are the “place” where public life is expressed  almost theatrically staged  as the necessary counterpoint to individual and private life.
A city not governed by the purely functional logic of traffic, transport and through-roads, of rents and real estate or economic development.
A city which proudly attempts to save the traces and sense of its history, which regards its monuments as an inviolable heritage as it also aspires to change and ensure its continuing vitality.
Mario Bellini

The design is for two residential buildings in the historic Brera district in the centre of Milan. A feature of the area are two bomb-sites from World War II. The project seeks to reconstruct these empty spaces while respecting the pattern and shape of the existing urban fabric.
The underlying type elements are those of traditional Milanese building, and especially the use of the characteristic courtyard-staircase-railed balcony.
Suggested by the context and the recent architectural history of the two lots, a number of innovations have been introduced into this basic format, such as the set-back ground floor, the large tree in the courtyard, the vertical cut of the front, and the bay window at the corner of the smaller building.
Ermanno Ranzani

Architect
Mario Bellini Architects

Design Team
Mario Bellini.  With Vittorio Samarati, Carlo Malnati

Collaborators
Massimo Adriante, Philip Allen

Model
Luigi Morellato, Milan

Project Management
Gestioni Arcotecnica, Milan

Geotechnics
Studio Geotecnico Italiano

Structural Engineers
(Basament levels) Italprogetti, Milan
(Above ground levels) Sorgato, Milan

Installations
Studio Bozino Resmini, Milan

Contractors
ELSE Spa, Milan
RANZA Spa, Milan
PROCOGEN Spa, Florence