MILANO CHE SI COSTRUISCE: I PIANI REGOLATORI

The paper examines the urban development of Milan from 1859 to 1912. In the years between 1859 and 1884 the city developed in the wake of the first industrialization without a master plan and only partial plans were prepared for areas where building activities were already taking place. Planning therefore followed private initiative and even the 1876 plan by engineer Angelo Fasana was no more than a tool, without legal value, to guide and coordinate the involvement of the municipal administration. This led the Milan ruling classes to encourage the decentralization of large industries in order to avoid the onset of speculation and the resulting feared negative effects on housing areas. Following the scandal raised by the parcelling of the Lazzaretto, which began in 1880, and by the one proposed for the Piazza d’Armi, in 1883 engineer Cesare Beruto was given the task of studying an overall master plan. The gestation of the plan, long and often faced by opposition, ended with its adoption in 1889 following three earlier drafts (1884, 1885, 1888). The present paper illustrates the conceptual lines and the most important issues of the plan: the size of the blocks, the definition of the green areas and the design of the Piazza d’Armi, and outlines the results of its application over two decades at the turn of the nineteenth century. Finally, the paper discusses - taking also into account subsequent plans, such as the one of 1912 by Pavia and Masera and the one of 1934 by Albertini - the long persistence of the “radial†growth model, outlined by Beruto, and the crucial impact it has had on the image of Milan.