When we think of today’s great design capitals, Milan tends to top the charts. The fabric of the city and those who formed it are famous the world over for a certain sleekness and elegance. This extends well beyond the city, emanating through the neighbouring provinces where many key materials of Modernism originate. This was, however, not always the way. Great cities take time, ingenuity, and vision. In the case of Northern Italy, many of these places were rising from the ashes of WWII, carving out a place for themselves in a new world order. We’ve collected a few key figures who played a pivotal role in building the region as we know it today. Read on for a closer look at how Modernism transformed the north of Italy…

 

Piero Portaluppi

 

Piero Portaluppi’s Villa Necchi Campiglio is lauded as one of Milan’s great architectural gems. It’s very much a product of its time, taking shape in 1935 while the city emerged as Italy’s financial and industrial capital. It’s also reflective of a change in paradigm, with many embracing logic, functionality, and geometric forms in design. What emerged was Milanese Rationalism, a style beautifully illustrated by the villa. The new materials and structural possibilities that came with an uptick in industrialisation allowed for a fresh approach to the way a home is both created and lived in. We see a streamlined architectural environment which facilitates modern modes of living and fresh aesthetic elements to signify this forward-facing sensibility. In Villa Necchi Campiglio we find a rich interplay of positive and negative geometrical forms, an innovative use of materials, and a logical flow of movement through space. It’s the perfect embodiment of the Rationalist style which rang in a new, modern Milan.

 

 

Giuseppe Terragni

 

Giuseppe Terragni’s Casa del Fascio has lived many lives. In 1936 it opened as the National Fascist Party’s Como office, and this is the legacy which bears most upon its architecture. It was built in the Rationalist style which was on the rise throughout the country, working in rectilinear and geometric terms to experiment with positive and negative space. The four facades of Casa del Fascio showcase different formal motifs, finding cohesion in Terragni’s consistency in materials and structural rhythms. The stone-faced building took on a hard, austere quality befitting of its inhabitants. It was later forcibly occupied by the National Liberation Committee, and from that point it’s taken on a new legacy as a masterpiece of Modern Italian architecture.

 

 

Luigi Caccia Dominioni

 

Luigi Caccia Dominioni was a major force of Postwar Milanese Modernism. He worked fluidly across industrial design, furniture design, and architecture, always aiming to create a ‘complete work of art’ in his projects. In 1957 he succeeded with flying colours in the Galleria Strasburgo. He created an arcade connecting two streets, altering the fabric of the city through his use of modern materials set in fluid forms. Continuous, curving walls, elliptical skylights, and rounded glass set a new rhythm for flowing through Italy’s most fast-paced, clear-cut city. The effect is heightened by the abstract mosaic floor created by Francesco Somaini, which adds a languid sort of movement to the space. This collaboration took place at a time when Milan was building itself anew following the bombings of WWII, presenting the opportunity to reimagine a future both bright and bold by harnessing modern modes of design.

 

Gio Ponti

 

Gio Ponti’s Pirelli Tower is a true posterchild of Modern Milanese design. It was built as a statement of intent to compete commercially on an international level. There was a lingering gloom in the city following its devastation in WWII, with economic turmoil tinging the collective consciousness. As the world’s largest tire manufacturers, Pirelli represented a more optimistic trajectory for Italy as a whole, and they hired one of the country’s foremost creative minds to embody it for all to see. He designed an American-style skyscraper which, upon its completion in 1958 and up until 1995, was the tallest building in Italy. Where the Americans typically worked in straight lines, Ponti introduced an Italian elegance of form. He opted for a tapered footprint not dissimilar to the missiles which razed the tire factory which once stood on the site. The building is strikingly slim yet tall, a feat made possible by engineering advancements as well as a creative approach to spatial and structural efficiency. This futuristic thinking and excellence in execution symbolised a burgeoning rigour in a city once down and out, now fresh-faced and ready to rise.

 

 

Carlo Scarpa

 

Tomba Brion resides in a cemetery in Altivole, where it stands sentinel over the hills of Veneto. Its story began in 1969 when the renowned Venetian architect and designer, Carlo Scarpa was commissioned by Onorina Tomasin to honour her late husband, Giuseppe Brion. As such, the sprawling Postmodern tomb is awash in tributes to the buoying bond of eternal love. Its defining feature – two circles interlinked – is a clear manifestation of the way in which two become one. Like much of the architecture, it was rooted in Japanese philosophy and formed by the visual language of Modernism. It’s here that east and west, old and new coalesce to carve out a place for the eternal. Over the course of its construction, Tomba Brion became Scarpa’s favourite of all his projects. He was so moved by the place that he asked to join the couple here when his time came, taking it as his final resting place and an enduring embodiment of his worldly work.

 

 

The TF Take

 

Tom’s designs are rooted in Britain but sparked by a spirit of exploration. Northern Italy is a place he often finds himself, with a calendar of design events in Milan and a constant curiosity for that which lies beyond the city. Our latest photoshoot took place in Como at the Church of Santa Caterina. This is place that wears its heritage proudly, elegantly complementing that with contemporary accents and speaking to the ethos of Tom’s design process. Pieces like our flowing Lily ottoman and monolithic Skye dining table glint in the low light, finding harmony in contrast against the textured walls of an ancient place. The result feels like an apt tribute to the spirit of Modernism in Northern Italy: a drive for reinvention which honours the past, harnesses the present, and fixes an optimistic eye on the future.

 

 

 

Text by Annabel Colterjohn