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3/27/2016 The ethical principle of Bicocca

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Author

Fulvio Irace

Photography

Donato Di Bello, Pino Musi

Published

16 October 2010

Location

Milan

Sections

Architecture

Keywords

city concepts, Domus 940, Gregotti, Milan's

Bicocca district, The ethical principle of Bicocca

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Launched in 1985 with the first stage of an international

competition by invitation, the redevelopment of the Pirelli site in

The ethical principle of Bicocca

Among the many "city concepts" that are being realised in Milan's empty urban

spaces, the Bicocca area is the only one with its well-defined identity.

Architecture / Fulvio Irace

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Milan's Bicocca district is one of the last major urban projects

undertaken in the 20th century, together with the Vila Olímpica

in Barcelona, for example, or Canary Wharf in the London

Docklands.

A quarter of a century after work began in 1989, completion of

the last voids and landscaping of the Collina dei Ciliegi, green

areas have substantially ferried the redevelopment principles of

its original programme into a new image of the city. Thiscompares decisively with the explosion of new districts that –

from the Bovisa to the former trade fair zone and the Garibaldi-

Repubblica area – are rapidly transforming Milan's skyline and

radiocentric structure.

Covering 700,000 square metres (comparable to the Défense in

Paris and larger than the cases of London and Barcelona), the

redevelopment of the ex-Pirelli tyre production plant is not only

the most significant operation among the albeit numerous

examples of converted disused industrial sites. It is also the one

that has most forcefully identified the theme of urban projects

with a strategic vision of the contemporary city and with the role

which architecture is expected to perform in it.

Gregotti calls it a "slow", "long-lasting" project, by applying to

architecture the well-known historical theories of Fernand

Braudel. These provocatively go against the claims of instant

architecture, which has established itself as a dominant practicein the logic of the master plan, where the notion of design as a

"modification" rejects the expectations of definitive utopias as

well as the devotion to liberating acts, which avoid belonging to

any historical context. From this point of view, therefore, the

whole Bicocca operation can be considered the most radical and

coherent expression of a position which, compared to the dismal

failure of the past decade's planning euphoria, claims its revenge

both on the theory of "junk space" and on acceptance of "sprawl"

as a model of "spontaneous" urban planning from the lowestlevel.

Although it has been the subject of discussion among urban

planners, architects, artists, sociologists, artists, the theme of the

contemporary city has not yet received convincing answers

despite a plethora of proposals. These have mistaken the

ecological perspective for a highly imaginative shortcut to a

future with more fabulous than real prospects. Or they have

adapted the metaphor of social fluidity to the laissez-faire of

financial capitalism, by translating it into a gratuitous variety of patterns founded on iconic abuse and artistic invention. Thus,

despite a substantial collection of future-oriented images, the

issue of urban design has basically been eluded. Substituted by


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the case-bycase practice, it has thus let everybody in and reduced

social responsibility to a choice of aesthetic options.

From the end of the 19th century, modern tradition grew out of a

reflection on the new city, in the awareness that the advent of

mechanisation called for radical approaches to the prefiguration

of contemporary society. The passage from an industrial to a

postindustrial and global society has by now made those patterns

irremediably impracticable. It has not, however, erased theawareness (indeed it has made it more dramatically topical) of

the need for a development principle that considers the "new" as

a dialectic interrelation with context, and not a submission to

gratuitous decorative morphologies.

This is the essence of Vittorio Gregotti's stance when he

maintains that "the design of a new city requires a development

principle together with its comparison to the empirical state of

things, of necessities and of the site". It is not the invention of an

abstract model to be applied to the land. Rather, it is a proposal

to start development from the complexity of the existent, and

from the attainment of an order which does not erase or simplify

a place's existing tensions, but organises them so as to make

them visible and comparable. In the case of the Bicocca quarter,

this means relating to the site's industrial past (to the memory of

the factory enclosure), as also to the historical interrelations

between radiocentric Milan and its suburbs. But one must alsoconsider the legacy of an intellectual tradition which, in terms of

districts and of the city, produced its most convincing results:

from the rationalist ensembles of Pagano and Albini to the

"revisionist" ensembles of the INA-Casa public housing season

created by Ponti, Gardella, Figini and Pollini. The search for new

basic rules was, on the other hand, the trump card played by the

best Italian architecture, to this day demonstrated by the

exemplariness of many "new towns" built under the Fascist

regime, and by Rome's EUR quarter, not by chance considered tobe one of the contemporary capital's most liveable areas. This

does not mean praise of the past, but its critical reconsideration

beyond all ideological screens and all claims to innovation for its

own sake.

With one or two isolated exceptions, compared to the many ideas

of a city being realised in the urban voids of Milan – Porta

Vittoria, Piazzale Maciacchini, ex-trade fair zone, Santa Giulia,

Famagosta – the Bicocca quarter is the only one that has its own

defined identity. With time, this has become steadily sharper inits relations to the city's edges. It also seems to be keeping its

promise to become the historic centre of a new suburb.

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Concept plan for the new city of Pujiang, Shanghai, 2001 – 2009

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In 1985 Pirelli invited 20 studios to participate in an international competition calling for the conversion of its former factories in Milan into a “new

technological and multifunctional centre”. Three firms were promoted to the final selection: Gabetti and Isola, Gregotti Associates and Gino Valle. In

1988 Vittorio Gregotti was declared the winner. This page: the Deutsche Bank’s headquarters, designed by Gino Valle, in an area of the master plan


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Aerial view of the neighbourhood, with the tall buildings of downtown Milan visible in the background


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A night view of the Teatro degli Arcimboldi


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Views of the Pirelli & C. Real Estate headquarters. The cooling tower in the centre of the building’s courtyard is an imposing pre-existing structure that

represents the memory of the site’s industrial past


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Author

Fulvio Irace

Photography

Donato Di Bello, Pino Musi

Sections

Architecture

Keywords

city concepts, Domus 940, Gregotti, Milan's

Bicocca district, The ethical principle of Bicocca

Location

Milan

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