Milan and Architecture. The Invention of the City

Milan and Architecture is a journey through the faces, visions and projects that have transformed Milan into a laboratory of creativity and innovation. Six documentaries tell the stories of six protagonists of twentieth-century architecture and design — Aulenti, Magistretti, Ponti, Mangiarotti, Albini, Bottoni — figures who imagined new ways of dwelling, building and living. Through words, images and memory, the showcase invites us to rediscover a city that looks to the future by drawing on the power of its ideas.

CURATORIAL TEXT

Post-war Milan is not merely a physical place, but an extraordinarily fertile cultural ground in which architects and designers — thinkers before technicians — were able to exercise a profound design sensibility, one capable of transforming the city into an exemplary showcase of modern architecture. A modernity born of necessity, durability and measure, which still speaks to us today with a voice both current and authoritative.

In this programme, Milan emerges as a true capital of architecture: not only for the scale of its works, but for the role it played in forging a shared language between art, craft and society. An open-air laboratory city that, after the devastation of war, rebuilt itself through the visionary energy of figures capable of imagining a new way of dwelling, building and living.

Milanesità — a distinctly Milanese sensibility — becomes the guiding thread connecting the protagonists of the documentaries presented: a design attitude defined by rigour, sobriety and intellectual depth, nurtured by a cultural context in which architecture interweaves with thought, politics, ethics and beauty.

Gae Aulenti, the only woman among the great masters of her generation, established herself with an original voice in a world dominated by men. A cosmopolitan architect, she transformed landmark spaces such as the Gare d’Orsay and Palazzo Grassi, always uniting design, beauty and civic commitment.

Magistretti, a master of anti-rhetoric, elevated the ordinary to the extraordinary through a sober and cultivated design approach, in which simplicity becomes an instrument of refinement. His work is a theory of practice, where aesthetics arise from function, and lightness becomes a value in itself.

Ponti, the architect-poet, knew how to bring together art and industry, classicism and modernity. An eclectic figure and tireless advocate of doing things well, he gave form to an architectural vision that was free, luminous and open to the world.

Mangiarotti, a radical innovator, transformed design into technical and formal experimentation. His buildings and objects speak of a rigorous balance between material, structure and function, in which the object becomes almost an inhabitable sculpture.

Albini, an intellectual of the design process, embodied a moral drive towards clarity and essentiality. His architecture is a continuous exercise in precision and measure, striving for transparency — not only formal, but ideological.

Bottoni, a key figure in Italian rationalism and a champion of social urbanism, conceived the city as a space of equity and progress. His proposals for collective housing anticipated themes still central today, such as the right to housing and the quality of urban space.

This showcase is an invitation to rediscover Milan through the words, images and memories of those who transformed it. A tribute to timeless masters who, through their work, built not only buildings, but an idea of the future. A future that, as then, is born from the power of ideas.