Milan Liberty style

With liberty in Milan it is used to indicate the experience of the aforementioned style spread in the Ambrosian city in the early twentieth century and the outbreak of the First World War. In the Lombard capital the Art Nouveau style found, thanks to the close link with the rampant industrial bourgeoisie of the time, a fertile ground for rapid development that saw it range from the influences of French floral art nouveau to the German Jugendstil and to eclecticism .

Historical overview and general characteristics
With the National Exhibition of 1881, twenty years after the Unification of the nation, the city of Milan definitively consecrated itself as the main Italian industrial center. The city saw the formation of a new emerging bourgeois class linked to industry and commerce and formed by master builders, landowners and entrepreneurs who in a few decades would have joined the ancient city nobility in abundance and importance .

At the beginning of the twentieth century so the middle class, which has become the master of social and economic life of the city, he found the style liberty, news coming from France and introduced in Italy in the ‘ Turin Exposition of 1902, its specific status symbol and the opportunity to show their power and at the same time emphasize the clear separation from the noble class and its neoclassical and baroque residences : this almost exclusive link between the new ruling class and the new architectural style and the clear separation from the architectural models of the “old” aristocratic class seem very evident when one observes that, while the new bourgeoisie raised a la page homes following the new dictates of the liberty, in the same period the traditional and more conservative commissions tied to the old financial and ecclesiastical world – above all the new bank offices in the area of Piazza Cordusio – remained instead tied to the now decadent and more conservative eclectic style in vogue in the nineteenth century .

To give a further boost to the development of Art Nouveau was the ‘ International Milan Exposition of 1906 that saw tens of style pavilions in the exhibition and public buildings and not that exposure helped to erect, this would put the final seal of liberty in dominant artistic style . Although very articulated and differentiated, the Milanese Art Nouveau experience shows some common points and novelties: recurrent is the decoration of the building, in wrought iron or decorative cement, with a floral theme or the animal world; while at the structural level the use of reinforced concrete is reported. The use of painting on the walls of buildings, often with ceramic tiles, and of caryatids and hermes borrowed from the architecture of the Milanese noble buildings is instead common. On the contrary, despite a very rich collection of Art Nouveau applied arts developed in the city, architecture and interior decoration struggled to conform to the new style and except rare episodes were still dominated by late-eclectic styles .

Reached its culmination in 1906, the Milanese liberty saw the first contaminations with eclectic architecture, which became stronger and stronger until the years of the First World War, after which the liberty survived only in minor influences in the minor construction, while the taste of the industrial bourgeoisie spontaneously merged towards the art deco .

Style
In fact, Milan Liberty style or Milanese Art Nouveau is more ornamental than architectural. Most buildings of the Belle Epoque have little asymmetries or bays with crazy curves representative of Art Nouveau but generally show a great rigor in construction.

The stile Liberty is also called stile floreale. And he is aptly named in Milan. Indeed, one of the characteristics of the Milanese Art Nouveau is the omnipresent use of sculptures and moldings with floral and plant motifs. These decorations often adorn the many balconies and the upper parts of the bay windows.

Another peculiarity of Art Nouveau in Milan is the use of ceramic tiles forming huge drawings on important surfaces of facades as for Casa Galimberti, via Malpighi. With moldings and ceramics, one can still add a quality ironwork where the often floral reasons compete of creativity.

Private building
The Milanese Art Nouveau season was inaugurated with the construction of Palazzo Castiglioni completed in 1903 on a project by Giuseppe Sommaruga, later among the major interpreters of modernism in Italy. The palace, decorated with floral-themed cement sculptures and wrought-iron compositions typical of the new style, stands out from the classical art nouveau for monumental forms and the use of classical elements such as cherubs, borrowed from the nearby noble palaces where neoclassical forms dominate . The building, considered among the highest examples of libertyItalian and erected in one of the most elegant and noble streets of Milan, it remarks even more clearly the status of the new bourgeois class and forcefully introduces into the city the use of cement as a sculptural element . The “signal of rupture” launched to the old ruling class was even stronger thanks to the insertion on the sides of the entrance of two statues depicting two nude women portrayed in decidedly bold poses: they aroused great scandal to the point that the palace was renamed by the Milanese the ca ‘di ciapp (the house of the buttocks, with precise reference to the naked back of the two women depicted) and the architect was forced to remove them and transfer them to the then peripheral villa Faccanoni, an excellent example of a suburban liberty villa designed by Sommaruga and where the putti sculptures and the motif of the column windows of the last floor of Palazzo Castiglioni are resumed .

Another prominent interpreter in the Milanese liberty was Giovanni Battista Bossi who has in his Galimberti house his most famous work: the building presents a very rich decoration of the façade with ceramic tiles painted with human shapes and vegetal elements with elaborate chromatic contrasts. Also worthy of note are the decorated balconies made of concrete or the wrought-iron four-poster balconies . A few meters away is the Casa Guazzoni, also by Bossi, which, while preserving the typical floral style of the façade, presents a decoration completely focused on sculpture with elaborate apparatuses of putti, female figures and vegetable forms always made of cement and wrought iron with overlapping balconies . Finally, the same architect created Alessio’s home, more similar to the style of the Viennese Secession with its rigid geometries and the vertical band at the entrance .

A rare example of self-computation was the Campanini house, designed by the architect and building contractor Alfredo Campanini as his own home in 1904. The composition of the façade generally shows a strong inspiration for the work of the Sommaruga, in particular for the sculptures of female figures at the entrance, an explicit homage to the portal of the Palazzo Castiglioni. The classic wooden entrance door is replaced here with a wrought iron gate with plant motifs, the same motif of the balconies, created by Alessandro Mazzucotelli: his other decorative elements are also in wrought iron that, together with the frescoes and stained glass, form an interior decoration typically liberty without trace of eclectic influences, something uncommon in many other contemporary urban architectures .

Unbundled from the logic of creating new areas of housing dedicated to the bourgeois class, the Ferrario house was built starting in 1902 on a project by Ernesto Pirovano in via Spadari, one of the most central and ancient streets of Milan. The notoriety of this building, still substantially traditional and relatively sober in the other elements, is due to the wrought iron decorations of the overlapping balconies with spiral motifs and floral decoration with griffin- shaped shelves, also in this case from Mazzucotelli, considered one of the major wrought iron artists in Italy .

Opposed to the floral trend of the Milanese liberty headed by the Sommaruga, we can mention the Casa Donzelli by Ulysses Stacchini, where despite the clear influences of the master Sommaruga there is a composition with austere lines typical of the liberty of the German area, and the Agostoni house where some typical elements the liberty style as the natural theme and the concrete sculpture are flanked by a typically nineteenth-century facade setting and classical elements such as bas-reliefs .

Together with the high class bourgeois homes, a large number of Art Nouveau homes arose in Milan for the middle and middle class bourgeoisie. The construction of these buildings, not being able to dispose of high investments, used decorations with ceramic and industrial statues in cement made in series, decorations in wrought iron and a special attention to the reduction of common spaces not strictly necessary: examples of this type of patrons are the Dugnani house and the Biraghi house, in which the floral-themed majolica pieces made by Richard Ginori stand out .

A particular feature of bourgeois building are the buildings used for mixed-use housing / industrial or commercial activities: one can mention, for example, Laugier house, built for the Valle d’Aosta family Laugier to house the family pharmacy in addition to the house. The building was designed by architect Antonio Tagliaferri in forms inspired by the Viennese art nouveau and recurs to all the typical decorations, albeit in a balanced manner, typical of Italian liberty such as tiles, cement and wrought iron composing forms derived from the animal and vegetable kingdom. However, the decoration is more sober and uses terracotta bricks typical of the Lombard renaissance typical of the street .

Of pure commercial use were the Magazzini Contratti built in 1903 based on a project by Luigi Broggi : the use of the innovative reinforced concrete allowed the realization of the supporting structure in simple columns and consequently the large windows with wrought iron parapets that characterize the building. Very similar are the Bonomi warehouses, also made with large windows, wrought iron balconies and cast iron columns . In addition to the commercial type there are also buildings once used as a factory: although less common than in the province and mostly demolished to leave space for residential buildings, among these we can mention the former company Gondrand and the former company Cusini di Cesare Mazzocchi, in which the Art Nouveau lines and the large windows of Magazzini Contratti are presented in a more sober way to combine aesthetic requirements with those of cost containment of an industrial building .

Finally, we can mention works dedicated to other tertiary activities: among the most famous examples we can mention the facade of the former Trianon hotel characterized by elaborate decorations with large windows and cherubs that reveal heavy influences neobarocche, later style taken home Tosi di Alfredo Campanini . Lastly, the former Dumont cinema, created with floral decorations and intended to house a cinema, was among the first buildings in Italy designed specifically for this purpose .

Public and public housing and the minor liberty

Decorative tiles made in series for the district of via Solari
The great industrial growth of the city of Milan resulted, in addition to the construction of elaborate and refined bourgeois residences, the constant migratory influx into the city of masses of workers mainly belonging to the proletariat : in 1901 almost 60%, about 280 000 people, of the Milanese population belonged to the working class. On the one hand the growing need for housing at moderate prices for the less well-to-do classes, on the other the occasion of the international exhibition that would take place in the city in 1906, suggested to the city authorities to draft one of the first articulated plans of social housing of the city .

It was on this occasion that the first popular district of the Humanitarian Society was built in via Solari, based on a project by architect Giovanni Broglio : one of the first realizations of social housing in the city, as well as one of the first applications of modernism in social housing, the The project involved 11 buildings on 4 floors, for a total of 240 housing units equipped with private bathrooms with drinking water and designed to accommodate a total of a thousand people. The maximum rent for the larger apartments was 100 lire per month (just under € 350 discounted to 2006) . The project obviously could not present the elaborate and expensive decorations of the Art Nouveau housesbourgeoisie, therefore the Broglio adopted decorative elements made in an industrial series: sometimes the less liberty term is used to define this style which, in the face of a decidedly lower expense, allowed a diffused and homogeneous architectural decoration, even if not too elaborate . In 1909 followed a second popular district of the twin humanitarian society of the first, with 214 apartments and always Broglio, where the series decorations are affected by a clear drift towards the deco.

Another example of social housing in the same period was the Ripamonti district, although, contrary to the previous case, the decoration is almost nothing except for the wrought iron elements. In general, between 1905 and 1912 the share of the surface area dedicated to public housing was slightly higher than 6% of the total, a number that despite the frequency with which the problem was discussed did not contribute significantly to the problem of housing for less well-off families . Another type of intervention was the realization of the first nucleus of the Journalists’ village, founded in the early ‘900 by a cooperative of members of the world of advertising, which aimed to build housing for the petty bourgeoisie, excluded from the plans of housing but not enough to afford luxurious liberty buildings in the center. The result was the construction of villas in a liberty style halfway between the rich style of the upper middle class and the simplicity of popular housing .

Not dedicated to housing but still of public use was the new Milanese fruit and vegetable market created from 1908. Of the ancient complex, today largely converted into a park, remains the building commonly called Liberty building with large windows with wrought iron and ceramic tile decoration of the firm Gregori .

The international exhibition of 1906
In 1906, Milan hosted the edition of the international exhibition dedicated to the transport world on the occasion of the inauguration of the Sempione tunnel. In addition to technological innovations, the exhibition was the definitive test bench and an exceptional opportunity to show the new modernist style . Among the various technological pavilions, less technical stages were included to attract a larger audience, including pavilions dedicated to the fine arts that were to serve as a showcase for the progress shown in the artistic field by Italy. Among the various works that have disappeared are the entrance that reproduced in liberty formsthe entrance to the Sempione tunnel and the railway station built on the exhibition site for the event made of cast iron, wrought iron and large windows .

Of the 225 buildings designed for the occasion, most of them are built in Art Nouveau style, especially the exhibition pavilions for the most part designed by the young Tuscan architect Orsino Bongi. At the end of the exhibition almost all the pavilions were demolished, with the exception of the pavilion dedicated to fish farming, later used as a city aquarium. The building, designed by the architect Sebastiano Locati, was built to host a new attraction in the scientific field, constituting a new type that differs from commercial, residential or religious buildings. The underwater world served as the perfect inspiration for the Art Nouveau building : friezesand ceramics representing the underwater life and sculptures of marine animals are arranged on the outer wall of the circular-shaped complex. At the entrance there is finally a fountain with Neptune and a hippopotamus .

Sculpture
Next to the traditional marble and stone sculpture, liberty led to a great development of wrought iron and concrete sculpture .

Wrought iron found its best interpreter in Alessandro Mazzucotelli, who brought the work of this material from a simple decorative element into a real art . Milan masterpiece Mazzucotelli is definitely the so-called Gate of butterflies of Moneta house, work that encompasses all the styles of the Ambrosian declination of liberty : the geometric and ordered the lower part are changing rapidly in complex plots that give rise to leaves and two butterflies, that thanks to the dynamism of the composition seem to hover in flight, almost canceling the heaviness of the iron .

The master brewer nevertheless realized a very high number of works scattered throughout the city, integrated with the surrounding architecture as in the case of the balconies of the Ferrario house, or simply ornamental like the gate of the Campanini house, the gate of the Maria Luisa villa or the Staircase of roses of Morganti home. Last but not least, the activity of Mazzucotelli in the applied arts and monuments of the monumental cemetery of Milan is certainly not to be ignored .

It was in this latter that the most important laboratory in the city of liberty sculpture linked to architecture developed: sculpture that, as in the case of architecture, merged more or less accentuated with eclectic and déco themes. As for the buildings, the Milanese bourgeoisie of the time found in the funeral sculpture a further element to increase its prestige .

Among the most famous shrines of the cemetery there is certainly the Edicola Toscanini, made of Carrara marble by Leonardo Bistolfi : the realization consists of a simple parallelepiped monument with decoration bas – reliefs representing allegorical figures of the life of the deceased with lines inspired by German Jugendstil, whose orderly and geometric composition manages to combine with the lines and the sinuosity of a more floral liberty . Among the examples of floral liberty is the Edicola Giudici designed by Paolo Mezzanottein which the decorative element is made of cast bronze modeled in forms of roses and withered branches created by the Rigola brothers : the floral theme of Art Nouveau is adapted to the cemetery theme. The monument is completed by a mosaic with a floral theme .

The most original and exuberant is the Edicola Origgi, an example of concrete sculpture that develops its structure in the intersection of straight lines and curves to end in a dome: dominant theme in the decorations of the aedicule, always the floral theme, where leaves dominate palm, sunflowers and poppy seeds . Other noteworthy niches in floral style are the Edicola Suffert with bronze bas-reliefs with angels and iris by Alfredo Sassi and the Edicola Croci decorated with one of the rare bronze sculptures of Mazzucotelli usually dedicated to wrought iron .

Eclectic influences and decadence of liberty
After reaching its maximum splendor with the 1906 exhibition, the Milanese liberty began a period of reciprocal influences with eclecticism, never completely disappeared in commissions different from the bourgeois one .

Next to a real re-flowering of neo-Renaissance and neo-medieval architecture with light Art Nouveau influences, such as the Cova castle built in 1910, you can find contrary cases, such as the Maria Luisa detached house, realized with mosaic decoration in which neo-Gothic and neo-Renaissance themes coexist with floral-themed mosaics and a gate by Alessandro Mazzucotelli among the best examples of iron sculpture in the city . Another famous example of this trend is given in the Berri Meregalli house and in the Berri Meregalli building by Giulio Aratabuilt in 1911, where a mixture of classical styles is found alongside liberty themes : the rough ashlar and the vertical development of the building refer to neo-Gothic architecture, the interior decorated with mosaics recalls the Byzantine architecture of Ravenna, while the wrought iron of Mazzucotelli and the parade of statues of various animals refer to the themes of the floral art nouveau .

At the dawn of the First World War, therefore, this contaminated liberty style went from being an expression of modernity to being heavily criticized as old and surpassed also due to the heavy use of classical elements considered long since outdated. The central station of Milan, which began in 1924 in a late eclectic style with its déco decorations with Art Nouveau influences, is considered the actual conclusion of the liberty in Milan that would have left room for art deco and 20th century style .

Source from Wikipedia