Asnago Vender and the Construction of Modern Milan

by Adam Caruso (Editor), Helen Thomas (Editor)

This is the first book in English to focus on the work of the Italian architects Mario Asnago (1896–1981) and Claudio Vender (1904–86), whose firm, Asnago Vender, transformed midcentury Milan. At the end of World War II, Milan was architecturally stagnant, with few recent constructions of interest to complement its historic core. Soon, however, Milan was the center of a number of remarkably creative architectural visions—not least of them that of Asnago Vender. Through their many building commissions, to which they brought a clean, modernist aesthetic, they helped to create the vibrant, architecturally unique city that visitors and residents enjoy today. This book weds lavishly produced illustrations of major projects and plans with insightful essays offering in-depth analysis of the conceptual and material aspects of Asnago Vender’s creations.

248 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2015

Reviews

[Servabo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Europe is breathing out: as it diminishes as a place of manufacture and the mass production of material goods, the meaning of its urban centres changes. The forms of successful European cities react to the mounting pressure of globalization in a variety of ways. Some, like London, respond to the presence of emerging economies and the rebalance of global power and wealth by redefining the outer limits of what is possible under laissez-faire urban policies and planning requirements. This approach erodes the city's existing character and meaning in favour of the careless expectations of itinerant, often absent, newly wealthy investors. Other cities, like Paris and Rome, protect their existing physical reality and accept the role of the European city as a museum that is being sold to a mass tourist audience.

This book is about a city and its architecture. It is about the genius of 21st century Milan, a city whose response to rapid industrialization and wartime devastation was neither historic reconstruction nor starting completely anew.