Vegetables and Flowers: the Gardens of Borgo Pirelli, Bicocca, Milano.

There is a group of houses in the north-eastern outskirts of Milan that does not hide the signs of time, but with its peeling walls, faded decorations in pure Art Nouveau style, and crooked entrance doors recalls a story begun in the early years of the twentieth century. At that time, this area, the Bicocca district, underwent a rapid industrial development, and among the first entrepreneurs to move here their facilities, there were the young Piero and Alberto Pirelli. In the 1950s, their factories for the production of tyres and electric cables employed around 12.000 people, spread among monumental plants and laboratories connected with elevated walkways and locomotives, and for whom a development plan of affordable housing was also begun.

Borgo Pirelli, this is the name of the group of 27 two-storey houses, was built between 1920 and 1923 for Pirelli’s employees and workers and for their families. Basic shops and smaller and more economic apartments were available in the nearby Casone (Big house), a U-shaped four-storey building.
The project was inspired by similar Anglo-Saxon and German experiences of social housing, based on the 'garden village model,' and contemplated a total of 90 houses, but it was not completed. Borgo Pirelli, the portion achieved, offered a good quality standard in an environment on a human scale. Unlike other comparable initiatives, in fact, houses were not small, anonymous and monotonous dwellings arrayed in parallel rows, but buildings of different sizes, arranged in a casual manner in an area of 22.000 square metres, each featuring its own decorative and architectural details, and surrounded by a small private garden. This was intended to provide fresh vegetables for the family, as it still happens today.

In these last days of summer, there are white and pink oleanders near the houses, dark hibiscus along the paths, old shrubs of roses with few leaves and few blossoms, hydrangeas and flourishing crossvines climbing on the fences mixed with wisteria and ivy. Zinnias, petunias and sunflowers thrive among tomatoes, cabbages, cucumbers, zucchini, cauliflowers and herbs.


Traditional cultivations that seem to ignore the changes happened in the Bicocca district after the closing of the factories begun in the 1970s, and the subsequent long period of neglect. Today, the important project for the requalification of this area is a reality, with cultural, commercial and residential initiatives settled in the historical plants, and green areas used to create unity among them. Simple and low maintenance planting schemes are privileged, with resistant trees, such as magnolias, salix, ulmus, and acers, clumps of bamboo and grasses, shrubs of roses and a very limited use of bedding plants. Water flows, sprinkles, gushes or simply reflects the sky in large and modern fountains. Prunus triumph on the Collina dei Ciliegi, Cherry Hill, the artificial mount created with the debris excavation of Pirelli, whose hillsides slip towards Borgo Pirelli.
Ivy that covers the retaining wall reaches out to the houses where everyday life invades the gardens. Hanging clothes that flutter between two old trees, a table with four chairs under a pergola, a barbecue in a corner of the lawn, small bicycles, susceptible dogs patrolling the gates, a number of faded gnomes and a variety of flower pots do not leave room for carpets of liriope muscari or the waves of soft pennisetum that are flowering at the feet of the hill.

Violet grapes ripen on a solitary vine above the entrance door of a house. They should be perfect to taste walking up to the top of the hill, where past and present melt on the horizon.

Photos:
TravelinaGarden,
Design of the "cottage-type" in the original project of Borgo Pirelli, from the AIRE research, pg. 245.


Further reading:
Linee guida per una casa durevole e sostenibile in relazione al parco edilizio esistente nel territorio di Milano, AIRE research, Politecnico di Milano e dell’Università di Bologna, Volume II, Milano, 2008.

Design of the "cottage-type" in the original project of BorgoPirelli