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The Stylish Subversions of Portaluppi

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Words by Nicolò Castellini Baldissera Images by Guido Taroni

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M

ilan is a city of secret charms hidden behind shining facades, and the architecture of Piero Portaluppi is a pure example of this distinctive combination. Milan has long been conceived of as Italy’s productive capital, as a counterweight to the political one in Rome—a place of creativity without the decadence. It has never been afraid of big ideas, and has usually had the will to see them through.

In his Manifesto del Futurismo of 1909, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti decried the sound of Italy as the “creaking bones of sickly palaces.” But what we see in the work of Portaluppi, my great-grandfather, is a subversion of the grandeur of the palazzo in favor of the charm of the palazzina.

Portaluppi was born in 1888 and graduated from the Politecnico di Milano in 1910. He received his first major commissions from his future father-in-law, Ettore Conti, whose only daughter, Lia, he married in 1913. Conti was then in the process of electrifying Northern Italy with a series of hydroelectric power plants along the Italo-Swiss border, and he asked the young architect to design several of them which still stand today. Even in these early works, there is a visible play between the grand modernist plan and the small decorative details that unify the project, delineate the private and public, and instruct how a space is meant to be used.

Like most of Portaluppi’s work, all of the properties featured here were built for the haute bourgeoisie (including, eventually, himself): Villa Necchi Campiglio (1932–1935); Casa degli Atellani (1919–1921); Palazzo della Società Buonarroti-Carpaccio-Giotto

(1926–1930); Casa Crespi (1927–1930); Palazzo Crespi (1928–1932); Casa Radici Boschi Di Stefano (1929– 1931); Casa Corbellini-Wassermann (1934–1936); Casa Portaluppi (1935–1938). What we see here is a small collection of the architect’s work around the midpoint of his career. It was a time when his neoclassical references were humorous, and rationalism had not yet dominated decoration.

At Casa Corbellini-Wassermann, recently restored and reopened by the gallerist Massimo De Carlo, slabs of marble are laid like ribbon candy, leading visitors through the space. At Casa degli Atellani, the hand-laid mosaic floors mirror the wave-like pattern of the front gate. Strips of glass, chrome and bronze are woven within the various doors, walls and ceilings of his buildings. Tartan appears everywhere, from the radiator covers to the terrazzo pavement. Growing up on the top floor of Casa Portaluppi, every day I passed a little house, the symbol of his studio, tucked in by the staircase of the ground floor (which today houses the Fondazione Portaluppi). This is a perfect example of his sense of humor—it should come as no surprise that Portaluppi’s first job, while still a student, was as a cartoonist.

His daring buildings stand out with their unusual geometries and stylistic repetitions, and look particularly modernist from afar. But closer inspection reveals decorative flourishes recalling Baroque Italy.

Portaluppi’s inventive use of materials—intricate marble designs, wrought-iron gates, mahogany doors, brass radiator covers, and even simple handrails— provided a new architectural vocabulary for Italian urbanism. It was rich, forward looking, and unchained from the aristocratic establishment.

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