Industrialisation of the Building of a Post-War Residential Estate in Milan. Specific Features, Issues, Strategies for Conservation.

In the Thirties the issue of industrialisation of the building has already troubled “modern” architecture, from Gropius to Jean Prouvè, from Buckmister Fuller to Le Corbusier. One of its characteristics features is the close association of the technical with the social and political. At the end of the Second World War from Great Britain to France, the political and social ideas that accompanied research into the industrialisation of building take a new turn, as an association develops between prefabrication systems and the desire to bring about a new world of man. In Italy, in particularly in Milan, a series of residential estates (QT8 and Comasina) were built in the immediate post-war period (1947-1954) and inspired by an experimental and “innovative” approach (urban-planning, architecture and building techniques) to the urgent problems posed by post-war reconstruction. The Italian context was a vigorous one but still at an early stage as far as the design and development of industrialised system were concerned. Stimulus came from abroad, especially from France and England. In Milan estates the experiment lay in producing “prototype” houses before launching rebuilding programmes to test new layouts and distribution of volumes, new industrialised building technologies and assess building costs and timelines. This paper aims to focus on the way these experimental estates in Milan, which contain structures created using very different materials and modes of assembly, have withstood the passage of time and which kind of safeguard strategy choose for them. Decay, the need to adapt structures to the standards of comfort and housing expected by a new generation of inhabitants, on-going demolition, the small alterations continually being made to the structures raise the question of how to protect the architectural heritage represented by these prototypes - part publicly part privately owned -, which bear material witness to the initial application of prefabricated building systems that would later be employed in the construction of large parts of our cities. Precise in-depth knowledge of these structures should highlight their physical characteristics, the materials and building techniques that went into their construction, and – above all – the context within which they were designed and produced. This, together with careful evaluation of the nature and degree of their decay, is the necessary basis for making decisions with regard to their future. The aim is to consider how inevitable and necessary transformations might be “governed”, with full recognition of the need to safeguard both the architectural characteristics of individual housing units and the overall appearance of the area as a whole.