Auteur Peripheries. Studies and Proposals for Quartiere Feltre in Milan

Abstract

The Municipality of Milan has recently focused resources, and attention on some areas considered strategic and fragile at the same time, defined as "peripheries". From the intersection between the geography of these areas and the evidence of 20th-century, architecture resulted in the "auteur peripheries” map, that the research here presented recomposed, choosing to investigate, in the wide range of complexes designed by architects notable at Italian and international level, Quartiere Ina-Casa "Feltre" (1957-1961), which involved the cooperation of 47 architects led by Gino Pollini, indeed an auteur neighbourhood. The peculiarity of the design process that originated the urban structure and the compositive features of the buildings, highlighted by various bibliographic references, has more clearly revealed by the analysis of the sources, partly unpublished, collected in different archives, and is reflected in recognition of this complex as cultural heritage[1]. Several on-site surveys allowed to document the current conditions, the transformation occurred in public spaces, property, use and layout of the buildings, and the actual inhabitants' perception of the neighbourhood. In this knowledge path, the use of a multidisciplinary and, as far as possible, a multi-scale methodology revealed to be essential, favoured by the IT tools features, that allowed to include and manage different information and levels of knowledge, concerning parts of the city, single buildings, up to construction details, partly modified during the last decades. This contribution aims to outline how only an interdisciplinary approach could investigate complex environments such as the fragile urban areas, with the purpose of preserving the recent architectural heritage, essential resource in relation to which is necessary to define the ways of regeneration.

[1] DGR 8/8311 of the 29.10.2008, Municipality of Milan – Statement of Notable Public Interest of Quartiere Feltre.