House in Milan [1934]

Luigi Figini

Imagery: Domus

A seeming amalgamation of the programmatic principles of modern architecture as dictated by Le Corbusier, statements by Figini himself serve this architect-designed architect’s house best, as collated by Domus in 1936:

‘Building the anti-city in the city. A brief compendium of creation in man’s dwelling. An elementary composition of objects that recur in the dreams of our desires. New forms of collective life and action are among the ‘signs’ of our era; but man also brings, and still must bring, to the four walls of the home, the desire for intimacy – a sense of irrepressible individuality – that has never been eradicated. Anti-barracks. In the house of yesterday “man forgot the immutable laws of nature and the counsel of light and shadow which regulate the course of events.’ 

Eliminate, purify, isolate, reduce the ‘terms’ of the city to human percentages, to other scales of proportion. ‘Frame’ – with panoramic squares and rectangles – the sun, the sky, the wind (and the landscape if there is one: urban or suburban, mediocre or fragmentary) as they vary with weather, time, and season.

» «