Modern in the City

The bombs that fell on Milano in 1943 left a wounded city. Many architects, even famous ones, worked as “barefoot doctors” to catalogue the level of conservation of the buildings that survived. This survey of the state of things left a knowledge and a respect for the form of the city that became the foundation for the building infills of the post-war reconstruction. What Reyner Banham saw as “The Italian Retreat from Modern Architecture”, appears today to the eyes of Europe as an important example of how answers to the needs of modern life can be given together with the recognition of the permanence of paths, of public spaces and of the existing building fabric. “Sentimental itineraries in the quarters of Milano”: was the title for the work in four volumes by Paolo Mezzanotte, and this guide could constitute its contemporary supplement, where the single works show us individual quips and the search for a common language in a “civilization” of building and dwelling in the city perhaps lost today in the endless net of the metropolitan territory.