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DESCRIPTION: The Gallery of Milan is a spectacular example of glazed shopping arcades dating from the 19th century. It is universally admired, but relatively few people are aware of its history, of the great technical challenges posed by the project and of the tragic fate of his genial creator, Giuseppe Mengoni. This video contains several drawings of Andrea Rui, such as the accurate reconstructions of the ancient churches of Santa Tecla and Santa Maria Maggiore.
In 1860, the municipal council of Milan decided to celebrate the reunification of Italy by creating a monumental square in front of Milan’s cathedral. The plans envisaged the demolition of a few buildings facing the Duomo and the creation of a road connecting the renovated square in front of it to the theatre La Scala. This entailed the demolition of an ancient district of popular tenements, narrow streets and courtyards. The video will allow you to know about that vanished part of the city, which also included medieval buildings of historic importance.
The plans approved by the municipality foresaw the construction of a covered street, with an octagonal square in the middle, intersected by another covered street: the Gallery Vittorio Emanuele II. The construction began in 1865. The large glass and steel roof structure was anchored directly to the façades of the buildings by means of an ingenious system, which distributed to a peripheral system of beams and pillars the lateral thrusts caused by the weight of the dome and the glass vaults of the Gallery. It was an audacious and innovative construction.
The pavement of the Gallery and the walls of the central octagon are decorated with marbles and enamel mosaics, the façades of the buildings with stucco, terracotta, wrought iron and various stones. Several artists contributed to the decorations. Many wonderful stores and famous restaurants and cafés were placed in the Gallery: the video will also allow you to know how they looked like in the course of time.
With the completion of the Gallery, the appearance of Milan changed permanently. The grandiose structure made many old buildings look inadequate to the city's ambitions. Within a few decades, the face of Milan was transformed by new streets and monumental buildings, projecting the city’s image of economic capital of the country.
This video is a production of yesmilano.com. An Italian edition of it is available on Andrea Rui’s RU-vid channel and on the website yesmilano.com. English text and narrating voice of this English edition by Carlo Rolle.
5 сен 2024
