Train station to wedding cake: art in Mussolini’s time

Fascist architecture in modern-day Milan

It is hard to miss the huge entrance of the Central Station, especially since the passageway is guarded by two gigantic Roman soldiers flanked by their winged horses. This incredible building was commissioned by King Vittorio Emanuele III in 1906, which is why an apartment was built for the royal family near the first platform on the right. The project was halted during World War I, and it was actually abandoned until Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister twenty years later. This is why its style is Art Deco, with the addition of the regime’s self-celebrating program of sculptures and mosaics. Now visitors can enjoy the curvaceous statues and the intricate scenes depicting Roman life on the first floor, while carvings of Hermes, the Greek god of travel, wishes passengers a safe voyage. Light pours through the wide archways illuminating the limestone walls of the gallery. Generally people are interested only in getting away from a station, but in this case, it would be easy to spend an entire afternoon looking at the architectural details. Mussolini’s station, which was in part inspired by New York’s Grand Central, remains one of the most impressive railway stations of Europe.

Palazzo Mezzanotte (named after the architect, Paolo Mezzanotte) or “La Borsa” is Milan’s Stock Exchange, located in the so-called business center of Milan (near Piazza Cordusio). The advent of electronic trading decreed the closure of activities in the main hall, which is now used for conferences and concerts. The building is spectacular, in pristine white travertine marble. The other buildings in the square date from the same period – the 1930s – and are in the same materials, and so Piazza Affari is an enclosed space, resembling a stage set. In summer, Piazza Affari is often used for open-air events. The location is ideal partly because there are no sleeping residents to disturb through the night. Ironically, when Mezzanotte was building the Palazzo, the remains of an Ancient Roman theatre were found while excavating for the foundations. The architect managed to preserve the ruins, and installed a glass floor so that they can still be seen. On the left-hand façade of the building there is a marble slab showing a plan of the theatre. The exterior of Palazzo Mezzanotte shows the regime’s liking of Imperial Roman grandeur, with its giant orders, monumental statues, and perfect symmetry, which is also a feature of the interiors.

From Piazza Affari, a fifteen minute walk brings us to the Triennale, a building constructed in 1933, the same year that La Borsa was completed. Although built nearly a century ago, the design melds easily into our contemporary time. Italian architect Giovani Muzio created the building with the same grand proportions as the Station and the Borsa, but with the decorative simplicity typical of “Razionalismo,” a clean-honed style that had developed in those years. The result is a building that was highly innovative at Mussolini’s time, and that still today is ideal for its function: the exhibition of art and design. Though it was built as a gallery, the Triennale is a pure art-form itself. It is like an extremely flexible container – so simple that it highlights the art within. Today the building is a point of focus for society as well as for art, with a café looking onto Parco Sempione, ideal location for an espresso, and the fashionistas haunt, Just Cavalli Café, at the foot of the Torre Branca alongside. In the Triennale, just as at the Central Station, there are still a few examples of the decorative motif that symbolised the Fascist regime, the fasces; a bundle of sticks with an axe. 

The same symbol reappears in an unlikely location, the gigantic fountain outside Castello Sforzesco (Piazza Cairoli). The central vat is formed by a whole series of bundles of sticks, and in fact the fountain dates to the late 1930s. The fountain was “temporarily” removed in 1959 during the construction work for the Metro underground railway, and the marble components were put into storage in a municipal warehouse. The connotations with the regime meant that it was conveniently forgotten, up until 1999 when it was at last reinstalled under the direction of Vice Mayor Riccardo de Corato. The beautiful, pink marbled fountain is affectionately referred to as la torta de’spus, or the Wedding Cake, by the locals, because when the water shoots up, it looks like the three tiers of a wedding cake.

Visiting these buildings is like taking a walk through time. From the majestic gods and winged horses of the Central Station to the bare walls of the Triennale, Milan’s architecture inevitably demonstrates its links to Italy’s history.

by Liza Giambra and Sharon Yi.