Milan Design Week

"We saw him when he
was studying the screws and ashtrays, handles and coat racks of the Breda train
cars, or the drinking trays, the signposts, the bookcases of his Bocconi; we
see it now in the small notebook that he kept while prison to record all the
data, all the names, all the clues that could contribute to the perfect
preparation of his escape, waiting for an opportunity to present itself to make
use of the collected data "

From F. Albini, G. Palanti, A.Castelli (eds.) (1947) Giuseppe Pagano Pogatschnig. Architetture e scritti, Domus, Milan, p.10

The initiative "Giuseppe Pagano and Bocconi: between design and architecture" consists of three fundamental elements: the light that, thanks to the collaboration with LUX Italia, for a week runs across the Bocconi Campus and characterizes the installations designed for the Milan Design Week 2022; an itinerary of visit between different and at times contrasting architectures of the Bocconi Campus ; the figure of Giuseppe Pagano, designer of the historic headquarters of Bocconi in via Sarfatti, but also of the furnishings and interior design of the University. These three elements are combined in a polyphony of meanings that each visitor can develop during the evening walks in the Bocconi Campus, of which only a few Leitmotifs are proposed here

A first set of meanings attributable to the project is linked to the light created by LUX Italia to illuminate Bocconi during the week of Milan Design Week. A "Pagano green" light - like many of the furnishings by the architect and designer - that spreads in the spaces of the Campus and that metaphorically wants to represent the production and dissemination of knowledge of a University that - as Pagano wrote - "has no weights of negative traditions and that hosts students civilly oriented to the spiritual and moral rhythm of contemporary life" (Pagano, 1942). A light, therefore, that like the knowledge of which it is a symbol is reflected in the surrounding reality and is not jealously guarded within the walls of the University. Since the first installation ("Light Source") - aimed at symbolizing the importance of the cognitive and cultural heritage produced in more than a century in the spaces of the University - light / knowledge overflows and dialogues outwards up to the last installation ("Human Lights") in which the perspective is reversed and it is the external social reality to illuminate and inform the knowledge produced in the University, symbolically represented by one of the design objects on display, Pagano's bookcase-wardrobe.

A second series of meanings refers to the dialogue between architectures that over time have arisen within the Campus Bocconi. Walking through these architectures you can not fail to grasp the heterogeneity of the styles and materials used by the different designers who have intervened within the Campus. This visual experience echoes one of the founding values of a University that has always declared itself "free": the enhancement and promotion of diversity. In contributing in different eras to the realization of the Bocconi Campus, all architectural firms have in fact taken the historic building of Pagano as a reference point, necessarily placing themselves in dialogue with it, but also giving life to updated forms, often antithetical to the original architectural nucleus. This wonderfully dissonant university campus makes us reflect on the role of differences, confrontation, even conflict in the production of knowledge that wants to contribute to the "economic and moral growth of the Nation" as the First Rector of Bocconi, Leopoldo Sabbatini, said. Therefore, the heterogeneity between the rationalist architectures of
Pagano and Muzio and the new curvilinear buildings designed by Studio SANAA, the forms of the "velodrome" building by the architects Gardella and the impressive structure designed by Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell of Grafton Architects, which stands proudly at the corner of Rontgen Street and Bligny Avenue.

Finally, a third series of meanings and references develop by looking at the individual objects exhibited along the route. They highlight the work of Giuseppe Pagano as an architect and designer for Bocconi University. A complex figure, militant architect and fervent intellectual, Pagano recognized Bocconi as the last of his masterpieces also for the use of different materials (glass, steel, Finale stone, lithoceramic, wood) and the use of color (gray-green above all). In this phase in the design of the furnishings, Pagano returns to his beginnings and proposes what is labeled by the experts as an "organic" or "curved wood" turning point traceable in the designs of the Bocconi armchairs and furnishings for the Aula Magna of the University. Precisely in this story we can highlight one of the most characteristic features of Pagano that connects so well to the spirit of the University he designed: a constant tension in search of new forms and new devices, an optimism towards youth and the new and, as he himself says, an "abandonment of every sense of enclosure (...) who gave me to my colleague (ed. Gian Giacomo Predaval) many and undeniable satisfactions" (Pagano, 1942). This is a founding trait of a University that is still open to modernity, has faith in progress and is always in dialogue with the city, national and international community.

Paying tribute to its first architect, Bocconi University then presents to the public the values that are "realized" in the buildings of the Campus: the centrality of culture and knowledge at the service of society, the promotion of diversity, trust in the progress and forms of the New, dialogue with the city, national and international community. Founding values of his entire community that he offers humbly, and at the same time with pride, as points of light that can illuminate a sometimes obscure present that has an extremely need of these values.

Since the beginning of the thirties, Bocconi University feels the need to renew itself and undertake a physical expansion, which allows it to meet the growing demand for enrolment and which is "inspired by the principles of an updated and autonomous teaching, to some extent free from the academic obligations of state universities" (Romani, 2016).

Giovanni Gentile - Vice President of the University, Minister of Education and Intellectual - through a subscription manages to finance a first part of the project and obtains a concession from the Municipality of Milan an area of public property located near Ravizza Park.

The agreement signed by Giovanni Gentile with the Municipality of Milan provides for the development of a project proposal by the Technical Office of the Municipality for the new headquarters that will then be evaluated by Bocconi University with the advice of an architect of his trust and appointment.

In 1936 the architect Giuseppe Pagano was called by the University as an artistic consultant and in the evaluation, he did not limit himself to negatively judging the project presented by the Municipality, but made a counter-proposal that allowed him to obtain the entire assignment, ingeniously dismantling the original project.

Thus, in 1937, excavations began for the construction of the new headquarters under the artistic and technical direction of Giuseppe Pagano flanked by the engineer Giangiacomo Predaval.

Pagano is completely dedicated to the realization of buildings and interiors: he wants to enhance the values of light, open space and lightness in a rigorous geometry without frills, elaborating a plan inscribed in a square, a symbol of perfection, within which develop different buildings with a structure with articulated arms. An open plan that allows all buildings to enjoy light and adequate ventilation and that never loses its unity through canopies, porches, corridors and stairs.The building thus becomes one of the most refined works of artisan industrialization and rational architecture, rather than rationalist (Casciani, 2008).

The structure, with its cruciform planimetric layout, is inspired by the Bauhaus building in Dessau (1925-1926) designed by Walter Gropius and becomes an open and rigorous solution at the same time that "without lingering in formalism responds exactly to the functional and dimensional needs of a modern university" (Suriano, 2017).

Pagano himself (1942) tells us about the aims of his work: "an architecture made for men belonging to contemporary civilization; an architecture morally, socially, economically, spiritually linked to the conditions of our country; an architecture to satisfy needs, to "serve" in the true sense of the word».

Through the suggestion of his words, it is well understood how the building in Via Sarfatti 25, still today, speaks to us of the history of men who believed in the high aims and power of education.

"In this pleasant almost "aquarium"
color, accentuated by the abundance of soft lighting, intellectual work finds,
or should find, the most favorable conditions for the best performance."

From "Gli uffici della nuova Bocconi", Domus, 170, February 1942, pp. 52-59

It is precisely in the experimentation in the field of interior design that, at the end of the twenties, in Italy architects find space, in particular in the Milan area, also favored by the Lombard territory itself, where the production of furniture (think of the Brianza area) and schools of arts and crafts have a strong presence and influence. Opportunity was limited for architectural and urban planning practice, also due to the presence of professionals who did not leave room for the new generations linked to Rationalism, but there wass a great opportunity for them to operate and experiment in the field of set-up and furnishing.

Giuseppe Pagano is responsible for a decisive theoretical contribution to the elaboration in the Italian context of an advanced theory of the project, supported by a vigorous ethical tension, which deeply permeates his critical reflection. As for the specifics of design, his thought is particularly characterized by the reference to the concept of 'standard', which he shares with the international modernist culture but also with industrial methodologies and practices (Bassi and Castagno, 1994).

In the words of Giuseppe Pagano (1936), the modern house is built "bearing in mind that shelves and cabinets are destined to disappear as 'mobile' elements to become an integral part of the home, often becoming partition walls between the different environments". These schemes also describe the attempt that in those years was being made in defining a new way of domestic living, in which the quality of living is also achieved by the integration and precise interdependence of furniture and architectural space.

The architect Giuseppe Pagano sees the architectural work as a whole as "a unitary organism, as a human, living thing, which is conceived by synthesis and not by analysis" (Pagano, 1936)

In the magazine Casabella, in 1933, the architect specifies the ideal reasons that make adherence to a "new architecture" necessary to cope with the changes of time: "At the base of everything lies a new honesty, a new sincerity that turns into pride of our time, a deep volitional stubborn feeling of simplicity and clarity. We will say, indeed, a 'rhetoric of simplicity'" (Pagano, 1933).

This approach to architecture and design leads to favoring new components, such as technique, reason, functionality, purpose and objectivity – representative instances of the modern to which Pagano refers, without forgetting the relationship with classicism: becoming an integral part of the practices of the project, they they lead to the "re-evaluation of some aesthetic laws of great importance. First of all, that of 'repetition'. The monumental effect of the rhythm and the repeated element is an ancient law... today they call it the law of the 'standard' [...]" (Pagano, 1933).

Pagano contributed to the birth and development of industrial design in Italy also with the design and preparation of the International Exhibition of Mass Production at the VII Triennale di Milano in 1940. Pagano's theoretical reflection on mass production, originating in the context and system of architectural design, has therefore developed in the context of a broad and "total" vision of the ethical and responsible role of the culture of design within society, as he reiterates in the comment of that Triennale: "The architect is thus inside life, at least as we understand it, that there is no discourse that avoids it" (Pagano, 1940).

Expression of this social design, in synthesis with the architectures and with the human component that inhabits them are the furniture and objects on display, original furnishings of Bocconi University that have found new life thanks to the installations of Lux Italia created for the Milan Design Week.

Thed ue rationalist armchairs made in 1942 for the interiors of the Aula Magna of the Bocconi University in Milan are in curved beech wood with an ingenious interweaving of "siloxilial fiber", or a "very resistant autarchic paper fabric".. They well represent the epilogue of Pagano's ethical research of architecture and design, combining modernity and functionality, tradition in materials and innovation in forms.

In addition to the two armchairs, kindly made available by Officine Antiquarie, one of the podiums for shop assistants, still in use today in the University, is also on display. Originally the desks for clerks were arranged on each floor on the landing of arrival of the staircase of Via Sarfatti 25 and consist of strips of natural chestnut slightly polished with linoleum tops.

Finally, Lux Italia's latest installation features a laminated wood wardrobe/bookcase designed for the offices of Bocconi University and jealously guarded by Università teachers and staff. For decades it has been preserved in the certainty that it was not only a piece of history to be preserved, but also and above all the expression of the social, honest and sincere architecture of Giuseppe Pagano.

Born in Poreč (Istria) on August 9, 1896, he is an irredentist of Mazzinian origin, volunteer and war wounded, major adjutant of the Julian Volunteer Battalion in the D'Annunzio River and since 1920 militates in the fascist movement.

After resuming his studies, he graduated from the Polytechnic of Turin and became a pioneer of the renewal of architecture: from 1937 to 1943, he was director of the magazine Casabella (which in the meantime became Casabella-Costruzioni), through which he openly polemicized with the monumentalism of Piacentini and contrasted the gutting of the historic centers.

In 1941 he volunteered on the Greek Albanian front but the war experience marked him deeply and the following year he resigned from the National Fascist Party: "Now everything is clear; on the one hand, Nazism with its
forces of local sguatteri, on the other the people who do not sell their
conscience and who work, dream and work "as said inside"».
On 8 September 1943 he was in Milan and immediately placed himself at the disposal of the Command of the square for an anti-German action and for three weeks he worked in Lombardy with the Matteotti Brigades. He organized, in Carrara, a clandestine network in the barracks until his arrest on November 9, wearing a revolver.

From prison he established a channel of communication with the socialist partisan network and on March 22 he wrote in a memoir: "I cannot and do not want any compromise solution at all. I prefer to take my thirty years in prison rather than declare myself repentant or perhaps pro-fascist. Enough is enough! with this filth!" It agrees with the outside a collective evasion plan, implemented at 3 am on July 13 during an aerial bombardment.

He resumed contacts with the socialist leadership, took over the direction of the Matteotti formations for the province of Milan and the role of member of the Command of Piazza della Città. On the evening of September 5, he attended a meeting attended by three traitors who sold him to the Koch Gang. Locked up in cell no. 4 of the building in via Paolo Uccello no. 17 ("Villa Triste"), he is repeatedly tortured. Transferred in October 1944 to S. Vittore, he asked to leave for Germany as a volunteer worker: he was in fact equipped for escape during rail transport, but the projects were thwarted and he was first interned in Bolzano and then, on November 22, in Mauthausen.

The beatings of a guardian cause him fever and bronchopneumonia; agonizing in the infirmary, he writes a lucid farewell to life, on both sides of a leaflet covered with a thick and irregular handwriting. He died "crushed by violence" on April 22, 1945.