IN
DEGREE PROJECT ARCHITECTURE, SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS
STOCKHOLM SWEDEN 2020,
RETHINKING THE CRYSTAL PALACE
Adaptive reuse of an abandoned warehouse SIMONE COLLINETTI
TRITA TRITA-ABE-MBT-2074
Adaptive reuse of an abandoned warehouse Lambrate, Milano (IT)
CRYSTAL PALACE
RETHINKING THE
Simone Collinetti
School of Architecture, KTH Royal Institute of Technology Master’s programme in Architecture
Diploma Project, Spring 2020 Stockholm (SE)
Introduction History
Graphic reconstruction from 1946 The method
The site
Design proposal
Contents
3 7 13 21 25 35
Simone Collinetti
Tutors: Peter Lynch, Carmen Izquierdo, Roberto Crocetti School of Architecture, KTH Royal Institute of Technology Master’s programme in Architecture
Diploma Project, Spring 2020
2 4 7 11 13 18
3 This Master Thesis work faces a topic of crucial
importance within the international scenario, especially in the Italian one: the rebirth of one of the dead pieces from a puzzle of industries and factories that used to run in the Nineteenth century, from whose production the whole national and international economy highly benefitted.
This puzzle generated, in some cases, integrated patchworks within the city, as well as some individual entities, disconnected from the city, but that revealed themselves to be the next traces for the future settlements. This is the case of Innocenti S.p.A. in the district of Lambrate, Milano. Covering a factory area of nearly eight hundred thousands square meters back in the Nineties, it nowadays presents itself as a disconnected and fragmented scenario, with no relations between the buildings anymore, no traces of what used to be there, apart from some constructions that, due to abandonment and lack of care form the municipality and private owners, are dying and falling apart behind fences and prohibitions.
The whole area would need to be reshaped, reclaimed and improved; the existing buildings would need to gain importance again, in order to carry on that role of community responsibility that used to have back in the days and clean that stain they are marked on with.
Therefore this work aims to be a testimony of what we were given by the past, by first showing all the available official materials that were recovered right before everything shut down.
As a second part, it suggests a proposal for one of the most iconic buildings left to a state of complete abandonment and self extinction: the warehouse called Capannone Magazzino Generale, now known as the Crystal Palace because of its present conditions.
Introduction
Previous page: Mechanics warehouse during reconstruction after bombing raids.
On the left: Mechanics warehouse during reconstruction after bombing raids.
get off their train to face the busy day life of the metropolis. From the urban planning point of view, it is perhaps among the most interesting and potential nodes in the whole Milanese scenario.
Italy, the house of many worldwide known companies that led the industrial production ever since the early Twentieth century. The house of food, fashion, cars and industry. The country that has bet and won, that has eventually failed and fallen, and then raised again. A history of ups and downs that, generation after generation, has created a national legacy of traditions and habits, as well as an enormous heritage of industrial archaeology. In the era of the wars and the era of scientific discoveries and progress, society has been able to adapt to the conditions they were offered from time to time and start from scratch, move and set.
We might say that economy, as well as urban planning of course, has shaped the peripheries of all the big cities in the world, and Milano is for sure one of those, probably one of the most important in the Italian scenario. The image of the city of the future inscribed in some people’s eyes the hope for a better world, providing them with all the facilities they would need, and furthermore with work places.
The principles of the functional city, which emerged in Germany during the twenties, were based on the desire to organise cities according to the criteria of functional specialisation, the importance of road traffic, and the hygienic opening up of enclosed spaces, in both buildings and public highways. With hindsight, the most surprising aspect of this doctrine, among the many judgments it might provoke, was the illusion that it would be possible to completely eradicate the existing city in order to develop a completely new urban structure, valid for the whole world. The radicalism with which the proposals that had the widest repercussions denied any value to the city of the past went hand in hand with a naive trust in modern slogans about the development of the cities of the future(1).
What is left from all of this, results to be invisible and sometimes even overwritten by new urban fabrics.
Few disconnected entities survive isolated from their original context, losing their original meaning, with no possibility for a successful rebirth.
Innocenti S.p.A. is perhaps the most significant example of adaptation to the political and economical situation of its time. It has been able to change market and field of production, by always keeping a leading character at both national and international level.
Starting from the building field with the scaffolding pipes patent (in Italian tubi innocenti) and joints between them, it moved to the military field during the Second World War; after the war it expanded the production towards the means of transport field with the production of the Lambretta scooters, but it also had great impact in the four-wheeler side with collaborations with Fiat and British Motor Company. Every city is constantly subject to the change, some periods are more stable, in some others the city grows and shrinks faster. We can say that peripheries are the liminal layer where experimentations, as well as failures, take place. We search for new solutions, spatial and social. Peripheries provide us with conditions for acting. And in times of economic boom, they are the perfect stage for industries to settle down.
The East side of Milano became one of the harbours of the city from the commercial and industrial points of view, already from the late Twenties. The Fascist movement took great advantage from the district of Lambrate, making it a fundamental pole in their political strategies.
One of the great features of Lambrate is the coexistence of urban patterns: it is the place where the city meets the countryside, where commuters
7
History
By briefly reporting the milestone events of Innocenti S.p.A., I will describe few decades of the Italian industrial history, an important chapter within the car industry history.
Innocenti S.p.A. was an Italian machinery works originally established by Ferdinando Innocenti right after WWI in 1920. The company was doing well and in 1931 it received the commission for the watering system plant for the Vatican Gardens in Castel Gandolfo, some 25 km far from Rome. This is the occasion that led Ferdinando and his brother to discover a small booklet published by the Englishman Scaffolding, from which they developed the patent of a system for improving and using in a more efficient way all the tubes, poles and structure for construction scaffolding. Innocenti had realised that, in addition to conveying gases and liquids, steel tubes could be used in industrial plants and on building sites as load bearing structures. He used a weld-free technology developed in Dalmine to which he applied a system of quick clamps, developed by the Scaffolding company in England.
Mr. Innocenti moved the production from the small workshop in Rome to the plant in Lambrate, Milan in 1931. The production of the company focused on construction material until the outbreak of WWII, when they changed the production to war material, converting his production to grenades instead of steel tubes.
Foreign political decision and invasion attitude caused serious damages to the factory, bombings and military tanks destroyed almost all the equipment and the buildings, leaving the structures to weather damages and abandonment; a big air raid on the 30th of April 1944, especially direct on the Lambrate factories, caused serious damages to buildings and
warehouses.
Although the bombings’s merciless, Ferdinando Innocenti’s words have always been encouraging and faithful.
The plant had been destroyed. I asked the trade union organisations if they would have faith in me. I remember that there were about a thousand people on the Lambrate factory ground that day. They expected me to go down. I was at a low point. Everything had been destroyed. The American bombing raids had done a good job. I told the trade unionists: “If you like we can go on for two or three months and I will pay the wages by selling what’s left. However, if you will have faith in me, I will rebuild and put all I’ve got left into rebuilding Innocenti. But you have to trust me and wait”. They trusted me and I must say they were never sorry.
The most damaged buildings and plants had been abandoned, but some urgent adjustments have been made to re-establish the production at a small scale.
That was necessary because the Germans, right after the bombing, started to move to Germany all machineries and plants not involved in production at that time. In April 1945, plant G.III had been occupied by Allied Forces who left it only from August 1946, after having caused event more damages and removed further things. Those damages, even though less visible and considerable than the bombings, were serious though. Tanks destroyed roads and pavings; sanitary and electrical facilities, staircases and pavings were irremediably damaged;
all that could be taken away (electric engines, cables, machineries) has been taken. After August 1946 Innocenti Society started the renovation of few buildings and machineries, so that they have been prevented from further damages.
Previous page: Lambretta scooters’ production.
On the left: Lambretta scooters’ production.
By the end of the 1950s, once again, Lambrate houses one of the most important Italian companies working in the heavy engineering field. Even though the Second World War had caused irremediable damages, Innocenti S.p.A. has been able to rise again, thanks to the political decision made by Ferdinando Innocenti, president and founder of the company.
In 1958 Luigi Innocenti, Ferdinando’s son, became vice-president, continuing with efficiency and tenacity the production of cars. In those years, some studies of conceiving a model entirely produced in Lambrate started to appear; after a failed collaboration with the German company Glas, 1959 is the year when they stipulate a contract with British Motor Company for producing Austin A40 under licence. Initially the only role was to put pieces together and paint them, but soon Innocenti S.p.A. started to produce the metal sheets itself. By the end of the 1960s, the warehouses that used to host war material production, is able to complete 100 cars a day.
In 1965 the company finds its most popular and produced model: Mini. This car was already produced by Austin Morris and then imported to Italy. But the Italian version was updated and changed just a little in order to make it more likeable by the Italian market.
In 1966 the president and founder Ferdinando Innocenti dies. Luigi takes over the father and in the same year the contract with BMC ends; the contract would be though renovated each year until 1968, but without giving the possibility for organising an efficient activity plan. Fortunately BMC renovates the contract in 1968 for other seven years. The end of 1960s coincides with the rebirth of the company’s activities.
In 1969 Luigi Innocenti decides for the transfer of
the holding. After Fiat and other companies refused to get on the holding’s properties, negotiations with BLMC (the name of British Motor Company after joining with Leyland) start again. 1972 is the year when Innocenti S.p.A. communicates the acquisition of the share package by BLMC; the company changes its name in Innocenti Leyland. In autumn 1973 the oil crisis hardly hit the sales: too many produced cars and too few purchases. In order to cover this disparity, the production reduces its number and the company focuses more on exporting abroad, but by the end of 1974 the company signed an agreement for layoff and dismissals (approximately 2.000 out of 4.500 workers). The situation remains dramatic until 1976 when Alejandro De Tomaso saves the future of the company. He intended to move the production to scooters and small engine capacity cars, in order to hire as many workers as possible. In 1978 Innocenti has largest percentage increase of sales of all Europe.
In June 1985 the company signs a joint venture with Maserati that takes over the factory in Lambrate.
Between 1989 and 1993 the company registers a serious reduction in the number of workers.
It’s 5:30 pm, on the 31st of March 1993. The last 1.000 workers leave the factory for the last time(2).
Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh visits the factory accompanied by Ferdinando and Luigi Innocenti.
The factory in Lambrate has seen many changes, in terms of production and in terms of area. The sequence of phases led to different configuration of the factory, and many sheds and warehouse were built in different times. All of them have been bombed during the Second World War’s attacks, some have been demolished, some have been converted for hosting new different uses, some still remains and some have just left big empty dead spaces.
It has got high potentials in terms of urban position and an extremely valuable presence of architectural and structural elements. That is why after the failure of the company and the abandonment of the plant, almost thirty years ago, many years of debates and negotiations followed; it nowadays present itself as a huge skeleton in which wild nature has found place, it has lost any purpose, any reason to be to the point that it is considered just another sick piece of the puzzle left by the Italian great industrial power from the last century.
A series of events that occurred after 1993 are summarised in chronological order, underlining the crucial path that this area has followed.
1994. The Ministerial Decree of 21st December 1994 establish Urban Development Programs through a national audition call.
1995. The former Innocenti S.p.A. area is one of the possible proposals. Nove parchi per Milano office asks for the areas to be redeveloped to be green public parks, and among all, the latter, renamed Parco dell’Acqua Bella, is the widest.
1998. During the meetings between municipality and Rubattino 87 (the society that owned the property at that time), the renovation of the so-called Crystal Palace is required. On the 29th of September 1998 an agreement states that strategic functions of general and collective interest should be set.
1999. The Eastern area of the plant is ready to be decontaminated in order to house residential programs. The former Centro Studi Building is sold in order to house a nursery school, a kindergarten
and a primary school. After some inspections the building is considered to be in a dangerous area, subject to possible flooding of the river Lambro, and thus condemned.
2002. The residential buildings are ready to fit the new families.
2005. The former warehouses located in the Eastern area of the plant are taken in consideration by Rai for a possible new headquarter (later located in Via Mecenate).
2006. The Local Committee presents a new project:
three universities with parking lots, seven five-storey buildings with related underground parking lots, a big park, a small lake and a plaza. The pedestrian road named to Maria Grazia Cutuli should lead to the new University’s auditorium entrance, crossing the so- called Crystal Palace, half private and half public. The Province of Milan launches the project Metrobosco:
an ‘green belt’ around the city in accordance with the already existing parks and green areas.
2008. The former Innocenti S.p.A. warehouse is named as a possible location for the new mosque.
On the 17th of September the building is unofficially guarder by the ex workers, who will occupy it for a period of fifteen months.
2009. Camozzi society gets permission to take over the INSSE plant.
The following drawings represent a sort of a testament of the industrial architecture of that period, and help to understand the relation between spaces, working functions and workers’ activities.
Only some of the buildings had been reported, but they range from offices spaces to production warehouses: Front reception, Workers entrance, Services building, Engines warehouse, Mechanics warehouse, Metallurgical warehouse, Infirmary, Carriages building, Oils treatment building, river Lambro electrical cabin, Studies Centre building, Gasometer area (entrance, main building and services) and Offices building. Unfortunately the remaining structures’ drawings were not kept safely and have probably been lost after the archives’
destruction.
However, through the architectural reading of the original drawings emerges how a strict composition regulates the whole complex: modularity and repetitions, proportions and alignments were fundamental for a quick reconstruction and, most of all, for achieving that efficiency which is so important for industrial production.
The choice of 1946 as a starting point for this work of graphic reconstruction is crucial because it is probably the moment that marks the rebirth of Innocenti S.p.A., also from a commercial and productivity point of view, starting with the renovation of few buildings and machineries, so that they have been prevented from further damages. Works that started at that period mainly concerned the renovation of the second warehouse (Mechanics), adjustments to Services Building, Carriage Building, Infirmary and roads network and the reactivation of some machineries and other plants and tools. All the remaining buildings and plants kept on deteriorating
because of the weather, since coverings and glazing were almost completely disappeared. We can say that the damages caused by the weather during almost ten years, were not less than the ones caused by the bombings.
Between 1951 and 1952 Innocenti renovated the Studies Centre building. As well as repairing the damages to structures caused by weather and bombings, the building has been finished because at the time of the suspension of works, it was still at a rough stage of completion.
A series of axonometric drawings reconstruct the volume and the overall appearance of the buildings we have drawings of. It is for sure a useful method to investigate dimensions and proportions used at that time: for instance, a key factor in the general architectonic expression of the factory was the use of rounded edges as much as possible; it seems that Ferdinando Innocenti himself really hated sharp edges, as his home in central Milano in Via Senato shows too(3). But it is also a way of regenerating some of the characters that the factory used to show over time, covered and cancelled by time itself.
The use of the axonometric projection as the main tool is essential to leave each building express its architectural language by itself, so different between each others and so similar at the same time. They sit on an abstract grid, again to maximise the emphasis, which has no meaning but suggesting their scale. The 5x5 meters abstract grid, in a way, reflect the strict composition of industrial architecture, the strict mind of a man who, with passion and dedication, created a legacy of hopes and traditions. The buildings become therefore a series of theoretical activities, each of them gaining their own importance, each of them standing upon a Supersurface.
Graphic reconstruction from 1946
(3) Lambretta. Due ruote di felicità, 2009, Vittorio Tessera.
Previous page: Milano (North East sector) with the Innocenti factory in black, 1946.
On the left: Milano (North East sector) with the Innocenti factory in black, 1946.
100 m 01
03
04 05 06
02
Innocenti factory, 1946.
07
10 11
08 09 12
13 14
15
(05) Mechanics warehouse. (06) Metallurgical warehouse.
(01) Front reception. (02) Workers entrance.
(13) Gasometer area, main building.
(15) Offices building.
(14) Gasometer area, services.
(09) Oils treatment building.
(11) Studies Centre buidling.
(10) River Lambro electrical cabin.
(12) Gasometer area, entrance.
The method
(4)What Antonioni’s movies mean in the era of mindfulness and #MeToo, 2019, Stephen Dalton, British Film Institute.
(5)Space, Time and Superstudio: Multi-media and narrative in experimental architecture and design, 2014, Peter Thomas Lang, in Dossier Representaciones Superpuestas.
Previous page: photo by Gabriele Basilico, Milano ritratti di fabbriche, 1978.
In the built environment, the subject of architecture must always deal with a multitude of voices, different characters, different aspects of life even though it is not directly related to them. And so, a first approach to the project has been by looking at different arts that in some way have touched the same topic.
Photographers and filmmakers have had a delicate and precise role in framing the urban situation of the past century, and Italy was of course one of the countries where the concept of terrain vague has been explored and documented. Empty, abandoned spaces in which a series of occurrences have taken place inspired figures like Michelangelo Antonioni, Tomas Struth, Manuel Laguillo, Axel Hütte, Gabriele Basilico and others to show the image of what the urban peripheries used to look like back in the days.
Those exact same days when Innocenti was at its peak.
The work of the Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni plays a fundamental role in setting a multi disciplinary background for this thesis project. His images reflect the abstractions of society, showing how the contemplation of a story is much more powerful than the action inscribed on it. Long takes, striking modern architecture, painterly use of colours, tiny human figures adrift in empty landscapes almost seem to scream the name of Giorgio de Chirico and his empty urban dreamscapes(4).
The encounter with Twelve Cautionary Tales for Christmas: Premonitions of the Mystical Rebirth of Urbanism (original title: Le Dodici Città Ideali, Premonizioni della Parusia Urbanistica), published
by Superstudio in 1972 for Casabella, led to a critical position in relation to the approach of the project.
The urban contexts’ social conditions of the Sixties and Seventies are not a good reference point anymore: the Italian group makes a move against that situation of pragmatic stability, imaging twelve ideal cities in twelve short tales, that act as independent parables, examining particular human psychoses related to life in the city. From today’s perspective, they resemble multiple variations of failed states that have - in one way or another - surrendered to a series of apocalyptically denaturing events.
Among the enormous success that this project of propaganda, it was a manifesto indeed, did have, it is certain that architecture, when built on the strength of its storylines, can communicate far more complex attitudes about who we are, about our gut fears and reactions, and about our sense of place in time and space. Architecture as such can be more than a mechanical instrument; it can evoke much more rich and emotionally penetrating sentiments(5).
It is clear that a methodology based on the understanding of the evocative potential of the city’s terrain vagues, carries a set of values deeply routed in the specificity of a place. Voids, absence, yet also promise, the space of the possible, of expectation.
This absence of limit characteristic of a wasteland, of an abandoned place, precisely contains the expectation of mobility and freedom. All cities have plenty of forgotten places, and there is no doubt that, there, the memory of the past seems to predominate over the present. The Romantic imagination, which still survives in our contemporary sensibility, feeds
On the left: photo by Gabriele Basilico, Milano ritratti di fabbriche, 1978.
Before jumping in the proper design proposal, I spent some time at looking and understanding projects from the International scenario, which act as the adaptive reuse of old buildings.
Among those: La Fábrica in Barcelona by Ricardo Bofill, The Tate Modern in London by Herzog & de Meuron, Niccolò Paganini Auditorium in Parma by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Punta della Dogana Museum in Venezia by Tadao Ando Architect &
Associates, Factoría Cultural in Madrid by Office for Strategic Spaces, FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais in Dunkerque by Lacaton & Vassal, Lycée Hotelier de Lille by Caruso St John Architects, Duisburg Nord Landscape Park by Latz+Partner and Huge skylight church in Tarragona by Ferran Vizoso.
Adaptive reuse is the process of reusing a site, a building or a piece of infrastructure that has lost the function it was designed for, by adapting it to new requirements and uses with minimal yet transformative means. It has been the prevalent way of building for generations, and such it will be for the years to come. Its processes show how innovative can result from social practices that are generated independently from architecture, but can be enhanced and structured by architecture to achieve their full potential. Adaptive reuse architecture is inherently non-hierarchical and additive, heterogeneous and contradictory, pragmatic and specific. Incremental construction, redundancy of space and freedom of distribution are its key features. Its beauty and efficacy depend on the capability of design to interpret existing infrastructures and organise the layout of new uses in shared and individual spaces through minimal yet transformative insertions, superpositions and grafts. Its energy is drawn from the plurality of forces that design is able to summon and intercept around it. Its enduring vitality comes
from its openness to time - to the past, to the future - and to life(7).
(7)RE-USA: 20 American Stories of Adaptive Reuse. A toolkit for post-industrial cities, 2017, Matteo Robiglio.
(6)Terrain Vague, 1995, Ignasi de Solà-Morales, in Anyplace.
on memories and expectations. Strangers in our own land, strangers in our city, we inhabitants of the metropolis feel the spaces not dominated by architecture as reflections of our own insecurity, of our vague wanderings though limitless spaces that, in our position external to the urban system, constitute both a physical expression of our fear and insecurity and our expectation of the other. The alternative. The utopian. The future.
The Crystal Palace in Lambrate is with no doubt a high expression of terrain vague. Therefore, all the considerations questioned by the previous discussion, come to the surface. They scrape the mind of the designer and one inevitable question suddenly finds the answer.
How can architecture act in the terrain vague without becoming an aggressive instrument of power and abstract reason? Undoubtedly, though attention to continuity: not the continuity of the planned, efficient, and legitimated city but of the flows, the energies, the rhythms established by the passing of time and the loss of limits(6).
Proposing a solution for a problem that involves years of history, requires a sort of innocent patina able to suffocate any preconception against political decisions and economic reasons. Looking back at the history of Innocenti S.p.A. and reading the contextual events that led such a piece of industry to its top and, afterwards, to its decay, implies looking at other examples of that time too. Other examples of factories and societies that were born and developed during the same times. Some of them fell in the same path of decline, some others survived instead.
Lessons are always learnt after looking at the two sides of the coin.
Among them: Richard Ginori, Bottonificio Binda, De Angeli-Frua, Alfa Romeo, Centrale del Latte di Milano, Motta, Breda and Fratelli Branca Distillerie.
Their story is not always a succeeding story: most of the times they raised as quick as they fell down. But the purpose of it is to enrich the background upon which this thesis project has its standing poles.
Milano has always been the Italian industrial hub.
The end of the Nineteenth Century and the beginning of the Twentieth see one of the greater industrial development in the city of Milano, followed by economical and social changing as well as territorial mutations. It’s how power plants, railway stations, mechanical and metallurgical factories and industries for food products start to appear. But time makes new structures substitute the older and obsolete ones.
Old plants and factories became thus new modern offices. New residential projects provide housing in the working-class districts. Few traces from the past still remain. Factories of the past, old railway stations and workers’ neighbourhoods are part of such an important historical memory, to become a field of interest in what is know as “industrial archaeology”.
The Crystal Palace, point of interest of this Thesis project, is the former engines warehouse of the what used to be the Innocenti factory. The district of Lambrate saw an important development and growth thanks to the presence of the productive plant, and the whole area of Rubattino used to be the factory itself.
Despite being in the extreme periphery of the city, it is located in a strategic position, indeed the quick access to the ring road that runs around Milano, makes it an area full of movement even if transitory.
The area is also relatively close to the district of Città Studi, the part of the city where most of the universities and research centres are located, for instance an only 10-minute journey by car or bus connects Politecnico di Milano with the Crystal Palace. Not only universities characterise the surroundings, but also high schools, professional schools, primary schools and kindergartens.
Another feature that is crucial for the district where the building is located, is productivity. Right as what happens in most of the peripheral centres, industries and production hubs favour quick connection with the main communication lines, and the economy of the whole area benefits from their presence.
Nowadays, even though many changes have occurred through the years, a feeling of production can still be breathed in the air. New residential projects have changed the appearance of what a long time ago used to be a fundamental industry leader, and it almost seems that the memory of the place has been shadowed by a layer of capitalistic speculation in the building sector. Only a few and scattered elements still carry that meaning. Among those is the Crystal Palace.
The so called Crystal Palace is a neat repetition of
metal frames, a wreck that almost looks like the carcass of a beaten beast laying on its back, with the ribs in the grip of weather and time.
The plan is a very defined rectangular plate, 312 by 76 metres wide, where tons of metal create a spectacular scenography, a spectacular game of shadows trough the day which is never the same. A few windows still remain attached to their structure, but they are mainly lying on the floor. A floor that is not a usual floor anymore, it’s a magical mixture of grass, mud, glass of course, fibreglass panels, beautiful gardens, as well as cryptical leftovers from some illegal rave party, drugs, bottles and garbage.
But it is this heterogeneous complexity indeed that makes it so fascinating and dangerous at the same time.
Sixty-four metal frames spread through the three- hundred-metre long building, supporting a roof structure that lets water and light in all day long.
Twelve stiff crane beams connect all the pillars and create also a visual connection through the whole structure. The presence of so many pieces and elements nearly confuses the eye of the fearless visitor, who is secretly kept prisoner inside of this dead belly, where nature found its place too.
The site
Previous page: Milano (North East sector) with the Crystal Palace in black, today.
On the left: Milano (North East sector) with the Crystal Palace in black, today.
Zoom in the situation plan.
35 The study of projects that dealt with the same
principles and limitations was crucial during the decision making process: having a heterogeneous set of examples was useful in order to define a position in relation to the topic.
Moreover, the list of old factories in the city of Milano, which could have been even further explored, is the manifestation of a metropolitan city that was born and grew up upon a complex and fertile fabric of activities that marked the history of the Italian industry.
The area that was once covered by the Innocenti factory has partially been redeveloped through the period of time that occurred between 1993 and today, but economical and political reasons hardly allowed any new intervention to demonstrate a sort of touch regarding the history of the place. The old existing buildings easily step aside in favour of new and speculative residential complexes. The few survivors have been left to die, and it’s almost as if the memory of what they were is dying with them.
That’s the reason why, acknowledged the kind of urban situation - the project of a part of the area by Luigi Caccia Dominioni, the recent landscape projects for Parco dell’Acqua and the actual state of conservation of the whole area - it has been decided to work and behave only in relation to the building itself.
Therefore, this thesis project focuses on the scale of the so called Crystal Palace, treating it as a big container, a box already inserted into a slightly consolidated context, or which, anyway, is going to consolidate even better with this design proposal.
The interest for the architectural features, the detailing of the existing, the collaboration between an old piece of architecture and new elements, set the scenario for the new intervention.
This blindness in relation to the urban reality, though,
is solved by proposing a programme that would have an impact up to an urban scale.
We can say that in this case, we don’t talk about scales in an ordinary way: we have to make the effort of thinking that the scale of the drawing is not always the scale of the project. Just like ancient villages had one water well, and the whole community used to rely on that only well, in the same way a relatively small project could serve as redevelopment, renewal, reclamation of the district of Lambrate and in particular the area of Rubattino.
The design proposals sees the old warehouse as the main character of the project, the reason to be for the rest of the interventions. Accepting the conditions of one thing and enhancing them in a programmatic way, is probably a solution for dealing with our industrial archaeology, for an innovative, engaging and sustainable approach.
The already existing Parco dell’Acqua finds a new place under the original roof structure, and it works as metaphorical and philosophical connection between the layers of history of this building. In order to integrate the project in the surrounds from a sociological point of view, the community will be provided with new spaces for exhibition galleries and, moreover, the city of Milano will benefit of the first botanical garden in history, having the opportunity to showcase species from all over the globe as well as entering the programme ForestaMi.
Design Proposal
Previous page: situation plan with design proposal.
On the left: situation plan with design proposal.
The first part of the project deals with the actual state of conservation of the building. It deals with the history of it, it doesn’t impose itself over it, but rather as a continuity of the existing layer, with a public space, a park, that takes advantage of what time and nature created all these years.
The new park could be almost considered as a romantic garden, that reveals the secretness of industrial architecture and time. It doesn’t establish much of a change, it only stresses that feeling of fear and sublime in front of uncontrolled nature, the concept of sehnsucht (the desire of desire) introduced by the Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century.
The presence of infrastructures in this sort of contemporary romantic garden is so strong though, that studies of groups like Superstudio, or those involving the concept of terrain vague, came helpful in the definition of the approach.
The main aim of this part of the project is, therefore, to emphasise the state of being of the factory, without denying what happened since 1993 - which is actually nothing - and making this space almost like a holy nave of a church, in which every visitor is able to walk freely, as in a park, and knowledge what the weather created along with the power of nature.
It’s a new space where nature is allowed to continue its job, where architecture is almost returning to nature, it’s becoming geography again. And a new relationship between human beings and untamed nature is born too.
In order to make it usable by the public and emphasise its main powerful features of it, a series of simple interventions are carried through the length of the 300-metre aisle.
Those interventions are:
The Supersurface, that clearly recalls the concept introduced by Superstudio back in the Seventies, creating gathering abstract spots within the spontaneous vegetation. The upper finish is in Ceppo di Gré stone, one of the most typical stones in the Milanese area. The contrast between such an
abstract object and the messy vegetation is itself the reason to be for this element that brakes the rule, almost like an alien.
The Shark Tunnel, which defines an intangible limit between outside and inside, creating a relationship between the untamed nature and the safe zone, as if the visitor was walking through a tunnel surrounded by sharks in an aquarium.
The Veil is a thin layer that surrounds the building, making the romantic garden the inside of a vetrine where subject and object are not clearly distinguishable. Translucent polycarbonate panels help to create a moment of suspense which is released right when the visitor steps inside the park and gets in contact with this unaltered reality.
The Balcony serves as a privileged stage from where new perspectives find place. The presence of the old crane beam is crucial for supporting the new structure
The Window, another architectural gesture to frame a view and, in this case, to create a strong contrast of backgrounds.
Floor plan.
Access to the building is provided from the South side, where the visitor makes his or her firs encounter with the project through what I call the Shark Tunnel. A gradual progression from the civilised world to the untamed nature prepares the visitor for the journey within the wild romantic garden. A few scattered platforms, the so called Supersurfaces, offer a place
where to rest and contemplate the immense aisle.
Two staircases lead to the upper level, where the Balcony opens the views towards either the project or the surroundings.
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01. Structural plate, reinforced concrete (185 mm) 02. Compact subgrade (85 mm)
03. Flooring, Ceppo di Gré stone (30 mm) 03
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01. Structural plate, reinforced concrete (185 mm) 02. Compact subgrade (85 mm)
03. Flooring, Ceppo di Gré stone (30 mm) 04. Support in concrete for elevating pillar from ground level (h 450 mm)
05. Glulam structure, Spruce (section 160x225 mm) 03
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01. Curb, reinforced concrete (185 mm) 02. Compact subgrade (115 mm)
03. Attachment to the concrete base, metal 04. Translucent panels, polycarbonate (h 3300 mm)
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01. Existing crane beam, metal (600x1200 mm) 02. Beam HEA 240
03. Beam IPE 160
04. Galvanized grid (30 mm) 05. Parapet (h 1150 mm)
06. Supporting cable suspended from existing metal frame
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01. Structural plate, reinforced concrete (185 mm) 02. Mineral based insulation layer (80 mm) 03. Natural based insulation layer (100 mm) 04. Compact subgrade in concrete with heating system for radiant floor (100 mm)
05. Flooring, wooden floorboards (30 mm) 06. Inspection grid
07. Window (h 4780 mm)
08. Support in concrete for elevating pillar from ground level (h 450 mm)
09. Existing structure
10. CLT panel, semicircular profile diaphragm (80 mm)
11. Mineral based insulation layer (52 mm) 12. Outern panel in plaster, waterproof finish for external use
13. Roof skylight
14. Timber substructure for roof 15. Undulated sheet (50 mm) 03
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Wherever the visitor comes from, the romantic garden or the long formal walkway, a big rectangular central square functions as gathering place for the public.
Here the three parts of the project, communicate and play the game all together. The North side gives space to a museum where exhibition galleries and other activity rooms function as a sort of response to the wild and untamed nature though still a poetic
expression but more pragmatic and institutionalised.
The museum fits within the original structure but it doesn’t use it apart from just being a scenography in which things take place.
The exhibition galleries and auditorium face the public romantic garden, more private spaces such as offices and storage rooms are at the back of the structure, also for logistic reasons.
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The elevation.
The contrast between the straight lines of the existing and the arched ones of the new intervention, creates a humble, continuous and repetitive elevation, that spreads for the entire length of the fourteen spans.
It reveals proportions and characteristics reminiscent of the Italian composition geometries from the Fifteenth Century. They give unity to the entire layout
and in order to maintain a coherent balance between old and existing, the new elements’ dimensions are set by the existing pillars’ width. Therefore the whole composition of the elevation achieves a justified, homogeneous and constant rhythm.
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Comparison with Spedale Degli Innocenti by Filippo
01. Structural plate, reinforced concrete 02. Window (h 4780 mm)
03. Inspection grid
04. Flooring, wooden floorboards 05. Existing structure
06. Glulam structure, Spruce (section 160x225 mm) 07. Outern panel in plaster (10 mm)
08. Plywood layer (20 mm)
09. Natural based insulation layer( 135 mm) 10. Hollow core space (150 mm)
11. Timber substructure for insulation layer, functioning as bracing role (135x40 mm) 04
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The homogeneous elevation is achieved also due to the use of a modular system that regulates the entire layout.
The module is composed of a concrete base with the two sides which are 450mm high in order to detach the wooden elements from the ground. Timber posts sit on the concrete base and they are connected through a structural element in Cross Laminated Timber with a semicircular profile. The vertical partitions adapt their layering as either being internal or external walls, always without changing the overall dimensions and perceptions of the volumes.
A longitudinal skylight centred on the vaulted roof completes the composition, it provides natural light for the interior spaces as main source of lighting, but the use of translucent polycarbonate as glazing avoids the presence of bright direct light, which is inconvenient for exhibition spaces.
with a single-component room, the module can be repeated in all directions in order to generate the spaces with the required dimensions. In the project the proposed spaces are one, two, four, six and eight-component based; as far as the more-than- one-component based spaces are concerned, pillars are positioned leaving a free span of ten meters, a distance which is reachable thanks to the semicircular profile in CLT that functions as a diaphragm for the shell-based-system roof.
01. Support in concrete for elevating pillar from ground level (h 450 mm)
02. Timber substructure for insulation layer, functioning as bracing role (section 135x40 mm) 03. Finishing panel in plaster (10 mm)
04. Plywood layer (20 mm)
05. Mineral based insulation layer (135 mm) 06. Natural based insulation layer (100 mm)
07. Vapor barrier and weather layer (10 mm) 08. Undulated sheet (50 mm)
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01. Support in concrete for elevating pillar from ground level (h 450 mm)
02. Timber substructure for insulation layer, functioning as bracing role (section 135x40 mm) 03. Hollow core space (150 mm)
04. Natural based insulation layer (135 mm) 05. Plywood layer (20 mm)
06. Finishing panel in plaster (10 mm)
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The freedom given by the modular composition allows the generation of a sequence of spaces whose atmosphere never loses power. A sequence of rooms, whether they’d be outdoor or indoor, where the visitor can always feel in contact with the three characters in the project: nature, industrial
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The main corridor.
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The workshops and ateliers.
The exhibition galleries are in direct relation with the romantic garden as a background. The structural elements of the module generate sort of rooms within the big open floor plan. They could serve as guides for movable devices that would divide and
define the space into sub-rooms, or even as guides for creating a temporary light-frame ceiling made of a layer of ETFE foil and one of fluoropolymeric fabric.
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The exhibition galleries.
The exhibition galleries.
to organise the functions in relation to the public, as well as creating filter rooms between the four greenhouses.
Proposing a botanical lab here is quite relevant for several reasons. First of all the district of Lambrate is in direct connection with the district of Città Studi, where also the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Science is located. Then, the area is distinguished
by a very productive character, so by keeping a feature of productivity, the project will integrate in the surroundings in a smarter way. Moreover, the city of Milano, along with the lead of the architect Stefano Boeri (mostly famous for his vertical forests), is promoting a programme called ForestaMi, which consists in planting three millions new trees in the province of Milano by 2030, to reduce CO2 emissions and cool down the average temperatures.
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The third part of the programme creates a connection with the urban scale which is even stronger.
If the wild and romantic garden is in relation with the art galleries by sharing the same sense of sublime and awe in front of nature, this part sees and treats nature in a more regulated way with a botanical laboratory.
The designed layout proposes an alternation of spaces (greenhouses and services) that are useful
And finally, the Crystal Palace, thanks to its current condition of conservation, perfectly suits for hosting spaces such as greenhouses, due to the complete lack of cladding of any kind and the only naked metal structure still standing, ready to be used again.
A new layer is laid on the existing structure, making
01. Existing structure
02. Primary steel structure connected to existing structure
03. Rainwater gutter, electrical services and inflating system routed internally through structural frame 04. Secondary steel hollow core structure, diameter (150 mm)
05. Aluminum extrusion
06. Extruded clamping profiles with integrated gutter in between
07. Air supply inflating system 08. ETFE pillow, 3 layers 09. Protection against birds 08
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02 01 The use of ETFE panels allows a complete bespoken
design able to follow and cover the original surfaces of the factory, with the lightest and less invasive solution as possible.
The supporting structure hosts all the required systems, such as the pillows’ inflating system, the gutter for rainwater drainage, electricity for openable panels and photovoltaic panels.
ETFE foil roofs can be supplied as a single layer membrane supported by a cable net system or commonly as a series of pneumatic cushions made up of between two and five layers of a modified copolymer called Ethylene Tetra Flouro Ethylene.
The ETFE copolymer is extruded into thin films (or foils) which are used to form either a single layer membrane or multi-layer cushions supported in an aluminium perimeter extrusion which, in turn, is supported by the main building frame. In the case of ETFE cushions, they are kept continually pressurised by a small inflation unit which maintains a constant pressure and gives the foil a structural stability and the roof insulation properties to the roof.
A standard three layer cushion can achieve a better insulation value than triple glazing when used
horizontally. ETFE foil is naturally a very transparent material and transmits the ultraviolet at a range which allows plants and vegetation underneath to thrive.
ETFE cushion systems are continually inflated by air handling units from which air pipes run to each individual cushion. As the cushions only need to maintain pressure and not generate air flow, the energy consumption used by these units is minimal.
An entire roof is generally powered by a single air handling unit which contains two fans powered by electric motors.
The most common threat of tearing or damage is from birds; excessive bird pecking can cause small punctures in the ETFE cushions. In general this poses no threat to the stability of the cushion as a whole as the system is supplied with built in active monitoring
which will automatically adjust to compensate for the slight drop in pressure. As a precaution the structures are supplied with bird wire deterrent to stop bird perching on the extrusion/steelwork.
From a technological point of view, every part collaborates for the entire system. The transparent roof allows light in, creating internal different climates; photovoltaic panels are the main suppliers of electrical energy; rainwater is able to flow over the new roof with no interruption, it gets collected into water tanks and then re-pumped around to the
The introduced structure works with timber pillars (each pillar is made of four members connected with metal elements at the base) and beams which are punctually collaborating with the existing structure.
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The greenhouses.
Despite the initial temporary use of the new structure as a base for the project ForestaMi, the main intent is the botanical laboratory, with the four different macro climate zones (tropical, subtropical, temperate
and glacial), that always keep the visitor in direct connection with the existing.
The greenhouses.
