Lingeri, Terragni e Bottoni in corso Sempione a Milano. Due interpretazioni del rapporto casa-città. 1933-36, 1953-58.

Between the carriageways of corso Sempione, opposite via Procaccini, you have a strategic point of observation on two of the most significant buildings expressed by the tradition of the Modern Movement in Milan. Built at a distance of some twenty years, the Casa Rustici (1933-1936) by Giuseppe Terragni and Pietro Lingeri and the Casa d’Abitazione Ina (1953-1958) by Piero Bottoni – at 36 and 33 of the corso , respectively – testify to two moments of excellence in the history of architecture, to a cultivated way of intending the profession and to a successful intent to renew the rules for settling a building in the city. The bourgeois Milan – known and reassuring, predictable in its clear structure – here admits two different transgressions: one subdued, inconspicuous, but not less effective in its ‘subversive’ impact; the other powerful, peremptory in affirming its own diversity and in evoking a possible urban landscape, and a different way of conceiving the house. Certainly the planners had already lived, directly and at the same time, their professional experiences, but here the dialogue is strengthened by the diachronic range: the twenty years that separate the two buildings are crammed with important events and crucial changes, as regards history and the discipline. The reconstruction, with the dramatic situations of emergency to cope with, represents an extraordinary opportunity for verification and rethinking for Rationalism in dealing with the city; the irruption of organicism into the national scene through the activity of Apao, the current specialized press ‘importing’ Alvar Aalto’s Scandinavian experimentation and the definition of a realist culture, are further elements of complexity that populate the scene; the physical closeness of the two buildings naturally leads to a direct comparison. The suggestion is powerful and it is worth going back to revisit these renowned buildings and retracing their history in sequence, as the city introduce them to us. What the Casa Rustici and the INA Building have in common is undoubtedly the peculiar attitude to serve as models for their rare ability to interpret the relationship between the building and the city, architecture and city planning, the space of the house and the space of the metropolis, without adhering to rigid schemes but experimenting innovative typologic solutions.