37 Chioschi a Milano: a Catalogue

ABOUT This “Focus Work” was conducted during the Winter Semester 2020 by Chiara De Libero and Maria Margherita Innocenti with the support of the Chair of History and Theory of Urban Design of Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete at ETH Zurich. PROJECT DESCRIPTION The urban space is occupied and defined by countless small architectures which, perhaps because of their modest size and humble character, have over time become undisputed elements of the city, to the point that one hardly notices their existence anymore. Among these microarchitectures, the kiosk is particularly interesting, not only for its architectural and social value, but perhaps above all for the urban one. As the smallest "building" in the city, it offers room for only one person inside, being at the same time among the most public spaces of all. It positions itself decisively in strategic urban points and gives life to important nodes of encounter and exchange. Free of any boundaries that separate the inside from the outside or the public from the private, the kiosk invites the passerby to approach, stop by and chat, giving back a significant sense of city and community. Living in Milan for some months we encountered many of these fascinating little structures and admired the phenomenon of the kiosk very closely. We became firmly convinced of its vital importance in the city, and recognized on the one hand the need to reinvent its shape and redefine its role in today’s society and on the other hand the urgency to safeguard existing structures of considerable aesthetic, historical or cultural value. In order to do this, it is essential to understand the phenomenon of the kiosk more deeply, to comprehend the reasons for its history and shape, to know how to read its role in the city with more precision. For this reason we felt the need to create this catalogue, which documents and studies 37 kiosks of the city of Milan. The selection of these objects is to a certain extent subjective, guided from our personal intuitions, influenced from our preferences, and shaped from the desire to tell certain stories more than others. We have dedicated much more attention, for example, to the structures close to disappearance. In this instinctive process, however, we have also tried to select the objects in such a way that they reflect the diversity of their forms and history.