Urban development plan forthe former Sempione freight yard

Milan

Competitions, projects, proposals

As early as 1937, Ponti proposed a unitary project for this large free area (300,000 sq.m) wholly owned by the municipality, almost in the centre of the city: an exceptional unit not to be broken up by an ordinary network of streets. He proposed a long perspective spine, an avenue 1500 meters in length, that would traverse the entire area and graft it onto the axis of Corso Sempione and the solemn neoclassical scale of the Foro Bonaparte, the only recognizable urban layout in Milan. It was not intended to be the usual garden district, but to provide the magnificent spectacle of a broad (and perhaps elevated) avenue set in a park, and in the park tall enchanting houses, with terraces and hanging gardens: isolated towers, with grass at their feet and alongside the towers, in Ponti's sketches, also appeared Vaccaro's hill shaped houses, from 1937. This was Ponti's view of a happy city. When, ten years later and still in vain, Ponti again proposed with the Studio Mazzocchi-Minoletti unitary solution, the towers were still higher twenty stories, the park area had increased the perspective spine was no longer an avenue, but a river of grass with islands of sports facilities, the traffic was shifted further away it no longer cut through the area but went round it, with underground links. The idea of mixing the society of inhabitants, within this green island, had also gained ground: here the dwellings are distinguished only by capacity, that is by the number of rooms, and not by use.