A Milano, dopo la guerra. Il contributo di Giulio Minoletti al Censimento urbanistico del 1946, alle commissioni per il Piano regolatore della ricostruzione e al dibattito sulla Metropolitana

The city of Milan, heavily bombed by the Royal Air Force in August 1943, at the end of the Second World War did not have a legally applicable plan. The plan designed in 1934 by the city-engineer Cesare Albertini was suspended by CLNAI (italian acronym for Committee of National Liberation for Northern Italy) after April 25, 1945 (day of national liberation from Nazi-fascism). The Albertini plan had allowed to overbuild without fixed rules many central areas, causing the destruction of large parts of the old town centre (many new blocks were built between corso Matteotti and piazza San Babila, and between via Larga and piazza Missori) and generating huge profits. Furthermore, the plan did not comply with the provisions of the new italian planning law, enacted in 1942. A new city plan was prepared by Lorenzo Secchi (an other city-engineer) in 1944-45, by it was cut off after the end of the war. So an advisory commission (Advisory Committee for the new plan) was appointed by the Municipality of Milan and began work in the fall of 1945. Politicians and experts were part of that Committee, among them (seventeen) also Giulio Minoletti (appointed by the new Order of the Architects of the Province of Milan). At that time Minoletti was “only” 35, but he had already participated to the drafting of some proposals that received a lot of interest: the so called Milano verde project signed and published (on Casabella-Costruzioni n.132/1938) together with Pagano, Albini, Gardella, Palanti, Predaval and Giovanni Romano, and the project for four suburban residential settlements around Milan, presented in 1942 by the Gruppo Urbanistico, group of several italian architects end engineers (among them Albini, Bottoni, Putelli, Palanti and others). However, the Committee did not proceed with the establishment of a new plan, but only decided to carry out a public contest to gather ideas and suggestions for the future city planning. At the end of 1945 almost one hundred proposals were collected. Minoletti (together with an other architect, Luigi Claudio Olivieri) suggested to cross the whole city with an underground road, so as to reduce the problems due to urban traffic; and to separate residential areas from the industrial ones by means of large green areas. In the first months of 1947 the Municipality called all those who had participate in the contest to take part in a conference, held at the Castello sforzesco, between january and march 1946.