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Simon McCormack Inside out: observations on Terragni

criticism
A practitioner re-evaluates the critical commentary on the
Casa Rustici in Milan following a week long stay in the
sometimes overlooked Rationalist work.

Inside out: observations on Terragni

Simon McCormack
Casa Rustici was a building I admired when I lived in
Milan in the mid 1980s, so the opportunity to stay
there for a week when it registered on a list of
apartments for rent was appealing [1].Before I
undertook the visit I was well aware of the prestige of
the building as an important Rationalist project, and
after some initial research became intrigued by the
divergent accounts of it given by different
commentators. The best known critique of Terragnis
work is Eisenmans investigation of its abstract
composition.1 Patetta exposes the constraints on the
design process imposed by the building codes, while
others emphasise the historical precedents that
underpinned the Rationalist project.2 Vitale and Bell
provide an insight into the ambiguous character of
the central court or lightwell of the building.3 What I
hope to add to these is an account which addresses
not just the abstract quality of the building, but also
its phenomenal qualities, and its social and
historical origins. My intention is that this material
will present the building in a way which is relevant
for current practice.
Popularly known as the Blackbirds Cage, Casa
Rustici (193335) is Giuseppe Terragnis most
impressive and innovative Milanese building.4 It is
one of five apartment blocks designed by Terragni in
collaboration with Pietro Lingeri over a two year
period. These were built for developers, and
consequently their form was constrained by the need
to reconcile commercial demand with new
development and planning controls. These Milanese
projects have tended to be eclipsed by the buildings
in Como: the Casa del Fascio, Novocomum
apartments, SantElia primary school and GiulianiFrigerio apartments; and unbuilt projects such as
the Danteum [2]. The critique of the Milan projects
offered by Daniele Vitale is typical.5 He describes the
apartment blocks as middle-of-the-road in both
social and qualitative terms, aimed at a
predominantly bourgeois market. He goes on to
commend Terragni, who [] comes across through
these particular buildings as a competent
professional; disenchanted, ready to compromise
with existing constraints and ready to take on board
the most mundane, everyday architectural solutions
only to superimpose upon them a highly refined and
cultural employment of architectural language. A

measure of the obstacles which Terragni faced

designing Casa Rustici is that the scheme was
rejected by the authorities nine times: the city
engineers department did not accept his unusual
interpretation of building regulations and the
building committee took exception to the aesthetic
of the building.6
Originally the brief for the trapezoidal site
eventually occupied by the Casa Rustici was for a twostorey villa.7 In the final scheme this is transformed
into a penthouse located above six storeys of
residential and commercial accommodation [37].
The building comprises two parallel blocks, each
accommodating two, or sometimes three,
apartments on each floor and linked with
spectacular balconate a ponte (bridge balconies), to
form the frontage onto the broad boulevard of Corso
Sempione. Rather than follow the oblique line of the
side street, Terragni extends the accommodation of
the apartments on this side into a slender full-height
wing or tower [8]. Commercial premises occupy the
upper ground level and part of the lower ground
level. The apartment for the owner of the building is
set amid roof terraces and gardens: living areas above
one block are linked to bedrooms above the other by
a corridor bridging the court, and creating a lateral
axis which extends into enfilade reception rooms
[6, 9, 11].
At street level a glazed steel entrance screen is
formed in three sections. These can be automatically
lowered into the ground, to provide access for
pedestrians and, via the side ramps, for vehicles.
When the concierge is off duty the screens are raised
and access is through a gate in the central section.
The ramps lead down to several garages, service and
plant areas. Paired flights of entrance steps lead from
Corso Sempione to a raised terrace monitored by the
centrally located concierges office and sheltered by
an expansive glass block canopy [12]. On each side,
entrances to the side blocks are served by stairs, small
passenger and external service lifts. Marble lines the
entrance lobbies. The lift car, a modern
reconstruction, is small and cabin-like with timber
panelling and glazed doors; beyond is the main stair.
Characteristically for Terragni, the stair balustrade is
formed from cast glass panels in a steel frame with a
heavy black lacquered timber handrail [13]. As Vitale

1 Casa Rustici seen

from Corso
Sempione. Note the
oblique side street
on the left, which
forms an angled
edge to the site
2 Giuliani-Frigerio
apartments, Como
by Giuseppe
Terragni. Detail of
the facade
illustrating the
typically rich
material character of
Italian Rationalism.
The surface is clad in
small pieces of white
marble

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subsequent development, which dwarfs the building

and contributes to Corso Sempiones disparate
character [14]. Nonetheless, the gravity defying
slenderness of the balconies remains a striking threedimensional composition: the span between the
blocks is extended visually past setbacks in the
accommodation and, at each end, a marble band on
the facade [15]. The residential accommodation and
associated linking balconies project forward from

points out, this is typical of the period: the internal

courtyard is reduced from an architectural
statement to a technical space for daylighting and
the staircases become less important as they are
substituted by lifts, etc.8
The dramatic modelling and monumental
character conveyed in the high contrast, tightly
cropped contemporary photos of Casa Rustici are
inevitably diluted in reality, not least by haphazard

3 Casa Rustici.
Perspective
4 Plan at upper ground
level. Corso
Sempione is on the
bottom edge. The
site does not contain
a single right angle
the plan absorbs

these minor
contextual
distortions. Rather
than follow the strong
oblique angle of the
street on the left side,
a small tower or wing
projects from the plan
on this side
5 First floor plan
showing the glass
block canopy

6 Penthouse or villa
level plan. The
original brief had
been for a villa on the
site. In the built
scheme the clients
apartment was set
amid generous roof
terraces with
sleeping
accommodation on
the right wing linked
to the daytime areas
by an aerial corridor

Simon McCormack Inside out: observations on Terragni

7 The tiny polemical

diagram that
Terragni published
beside the floor plans
for Casa Rustici. His
proposal is
juxtaposed with the
layout expected by
the new building
codes, which
Terragni rejected and
has crossed out

8 The side of the

building folds out
towards the oblique
side street
9 The roof garden. The
aerial corridor to the
bedrooms is in the
centre of the picture
10 View from the back
of the court

criticism arq . vol 14 . no 2 . 2010

rhetorical skyscrapers to their lift towers [18].9 Casa

Rustici was designed after Terragni had completed
work on the SantElia inspired monument to the
fallen in Como and major exhibitions of the
Futurists work in Como and Milan. The formal
similarities are striking, however, the balconies were
also a consequence of the decision to develop two
parallel blocks at right angles to the main street.
Development constraints limited the height of new

the lower storeys framing the entrance, to create a

frontal emphasis [16]. At roof level the penthouse
apartment is set back from the perimeter and the
top edge of the perimeter frame is exposed for the
full width of the building; an abstract cornice that
unifies the whole composition [17].
The balconate a ponte are the defining feature of
Casa Rustici, plausibly associated by Dennis Doordan
with bridges linking each floor of SantElias

10

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buildings and required that courtyards had a

minimum surface area. There was also an
expectation that the block would follow the
geometry of the street. Terragnis defiance of this
formula is illustrated in diagrams published
alongside his own solution, which show the officially
sanctioned approach scored through with a large
cross [7]. Paradoxically, the city engineers considered
the balconies compromised the court while the
planners did not like service accommodation
exposed on the principal frontage. Bell perceptively
describes the unusual effect of the balconies, which
[] seem to span the voided center of the building [to
create] a space more akin to a vacuum than to a
simple absence.10
By contrast, the side elevations have a more static
character and are defined by an elaborated grid of
marble framing and solid panels with rendered
infill, which characterise Casa Rustici as a Rationalist
building [8, 16]. Doordan explains: the grid emerged
as the emblematic feature of northern Italian
Rationalism in the 1930s. [] the grid symbolized the

Rationalists commitment to a uniform yet flexible

architecture, predicated on a conception of rational
geometric order rather than (to cite a favourite
Futurist phrase) lyrical intuition or personal
whimsy. 11 At street level the commercial
accommodation is distinct from the residential
accommodation and entirely faced in marble, while
the penthouse is set back to fully expose the frame.
This elaborate transition from solid to permeable
spatial enclosure occurs not only from the base to
the top, but also from the sides to the front. Unlike
the street frontage, which is highly articulated, both
courtyard elevations are neutrally faced in render.
Tight control is relaxed and surfaces are disrupted by
projecting flues and the unresolved junction
between the service balcony structure and the bridge
corridor above [19].
11 The aerial corridor
spanning between
the day and night
accommodation
located on top of
each wing of the
building

11

12 Entrance
13 Stair

15 The main frontage

from Corso Sempione
(2009)

14 The main frontage

overlooking Corso
Sempione
(contemporary photo)

12

13

Simon McCormack Inside out: observations on Terragni

criticism arq . vol 14 . no 2 . 2010

Italian Rationalists were preoccupied with the

architectural past and Casa Rustici has been subject
to several interpretations which rely on this interest.
Schumacher, for example, finds the tripartite
organisation of the building (solid-void-solid

volumes, with facing stairs on either side of the

court), reminiscent of the Venetian palace type.12 He
suggests Terragnis treatment of the balconies is
derived from the portego, or galleried central bay of
the Venetian palace, in which flanking rooms are

14

15

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inset rhetorically. Schumacher eulogises the frame

in Terragnis buildings: the frame as in Palladios
Palazzo Chiericati in Vicenza recalls the colonnade
of the ancient town; it announces that the new
Roman Empire will once again boast streets of
colonnades like the fora of ancient Rome or the
canals of Venice. 13 Perhaps there is a more prosaic
explanation: in Italian palazzo also means block of
flats. Should it come as a surprise that the

arrangement of domestic accommodation in urban

blocks may produce archetypal forms? Even less
convincing than Schumachers argument is
Manteros suggestion that the organisation of the
building is reminiscent of the Romanesque basilica,
with three aisles and a lateral bell tower.14 Surely the
court is experienced as a void a utilitarian space
that cannot be occupied and is not comparable to
the nave of a church. His description of the
projecting lateral block as a tower is adopted by
others, but is less persuasive than Schumachers
suggestion that it should be read as a folding out of
the side facade [8].15
Our apartment, in the east corner of the building
and with a single bedroom balcony overlooking the
lightwell, was the most basic all the other
apartments are provided with balconies linked to
their living spaces and overlooking the street.
Comparison with the published plans of the
building, and consideration of changes to the floor
finish (both to the hall floor, which is formed of
richly coloured fragments of marble, and to the
parquet in the rooms), led us to the conclusion that
the layout of the flat had been altered over the years
[20]. These modifications had been easily
accommodated within the original concrete

16

16 The side of the

building. Note the
projecting zone of
the balconies
articulated on the
left-hand side. The
repeated pattern of
windows set into
varying backgrounds
of marble or render

and left as void on

the top floor is a
typical Terragni
compositional
device
17 Panels of sky are
framed by the
balconate a ponte in
the frontal view

17

Simon McCormack Inside out: observations on Terragni

criticism arq . vol 14 . no 2 . 2010

18 SantElia, casa
gradinate for the
Citta Nuova, 1914.
The bridges linking
the lift towers to the
building may have
been Terragnis
inspiration for the
balconate a ponte

19 Casa Rustici. The

interior of the court
has a prosaic
character
20 Small pieces of
marble line the hall
floor. More crudely
laid areas may
indicate changes to
the original layout

structure. High ceilings and cellular planning, with

conventional window layouts, create a comfortably
scaled, if unexceptional interior. Contemporary
photographs published of the building tended to
neglect the ordinary apartment interiors in favour of
the freer form penthouse apartment and the elegant
furnishing of the concierges office [21]. Etlin repeats
the litany of a contemporary Rassegna di Architettura
article: non-service rooms offer the benefits of sun,
air and greenery and the front balconies protect
living accommodation from direct south-western
sunlight.16 Similarly he describes sliding glass doors
between a wide entrance foyer and its adjacent living
room and the staggered arrangement of rooms
which allows the elimination of long blind
corridors and the better aeration of the rooms.
These glowing descriptions should be treated with

18

20

19

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21

circumspection, since he also describes the lower

ground level offices receiving light and air from the
small garden areas of the open internal courtyard
this level in fact contains garaging. Despite the
abstract composition of the exterior, the fenestration
is well detailed, with integral roller shutters and
timber windows set into the openings incorporating
a recess below for the radiator [22]. Marble cills
provided with a drip project beyond the external
wall face. Following the typical nineteenth-century
pattern of construction technology, Terragni
ensured that the building is properly weathered, a
far cry from the naive detailing of Early Modern
architects elsewhere.

22

24

25

23

Simon McCormack Inside out: observations on Terragni

21 The streamlined
original interior of
the concierges
office

23 View from the

bedroom balcony
across the narrow
court

22 Windows are well

detailed with marble
cills and integrated
shutters

24 View out from the

court. Balconies on the
right provided discreet
access for domestic
staff and deliveries via
the service lift

25 Oblique view from

Corso Sempione, in
which the sides of the
service accommodation
lining the court are
more visible. It was this
view that the planners
objected to, feeling that
it was not appropriate
for the main frontage

criticism arq . vol 14 . no 2 . 2010

Although our bedroom had a balcony with French

windows providing a welcome release from the
confines of the apartment, this was compromised by
the proximity of neighbours across the narrow
lightwell [23]. The wide balconies that run across the
glass block screens of the stairwells are even more
utilitarian in character [24]. They originally provided
discreet access for domestic staff and deliveries from
the service lift to the back doors of the kitchens.
Viewed from our apartment the heroism of the
balconate a ponte was tempered by these balconies,
and the glass block and asphalt roofs which define
the character of the court. The form and materiality
of the building also created an intense acoustic.

Sounds of the city were transmitted into the interior

with uncanny directness, whether street noise and
the clash of trams in the echo chamber formed by
the parallel blocks, or the nocturnal pacing of an
upstairs neighbour.
More than seventy years after it was completed,
what lessons does Casa Rustici offer for current
practice? The form, scale and materials engage
inventively and sympathetically with the city. The
interplay of wall and frame elements articulated
with different materials, creates a subtly scaled
composition. The bravura gesture of the balconate a
ponte exploits the private space fronting the
apartments to mediate between the public domain

26, 27 Finsbury Health

Centre, Tecton,
193538. Tectons
building shares
many features with
Casa Rustici: an axial
entrance serving
paired wings and
stairs, with a roof
terrace and glass
blocks associated
with the entrance.
Although both
buildings
incorporate highly
controlled
envelopes, their
concrete structures
have facilitated
flexible internal
planning and
progressive
adaptation to reflect
changing
requirements and
expectations

26

27

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28
28 Entrance paving is
articulated with
differently scaled
pieces of stone

29 At night the lights

from the street and
glowing through the
glass block screens
of the stairwells
transform the
character of the
internal court

of Corso Sempione and the service space of the

internal court. Desultory planting and an absence of
domestic occupation seem to have characterised the
balconies from their inception, conceived as a
response to technical and legislative constraints or
the urge for rhetoric, rather than a desire to provide
domestic amenity [14, 15, 24]. Were the concerns of
the building committee about views of the service
court being exposed on Corso Sempione justified? In
close axial views, the voids in the front facade frame
glorious panels of sky, but from a distance and
obliquely, the banality of the courtyard is all too
apparent: it is more like a lightwell or service yard
[17, 25]. Although the view out to Corso Sempione
through the screening elements of the facade may be
enticing, the view down onto the glass block screen
and garage roofs is less appealing [24]. The effect has
been exacerbated by subsequent infilling of the slots
in the glass block canopy, which would have allowed
a direct view back to the entrance. Lacking formal
ambition, the court cannot be occupied and is a void
at the heart of the building.
Then there is the question of the corridor
spanning the court and linking the two halves of the
penthouse [11]. It is an idiosyncratic arrangement
and inconsistent with the objective of eliminating
corridors in the more standard flats below.17 One
senses that this device, like the balconate a ponte, is
Terragnis response to the futuristic and dramatic
spatial potential offered by new construction
techniques. Otherwise the clarity of the overall
planning is admirable: the entrance to the
apartments and spatial separation from the street
effectively accomplished by the arrangement of the
entrance steps and canopy; the internal circulation
is forthright, and the stairs are naturally lit and
ventilated. The concrete structure, albeit
unintentionally, has allowed adjustments to be made
to the internal layout of individual flats. In these
Simon McCormack Inside out: observations on Terragni

29

respects in its robust parti, paired blocks and

circulation, axial entrance, roof terrace and use of
glass blocks Casa Rustici can be compared to
Tectons later Finsbury Health Centre (193538)
[26, 27]. Terragnis building is soundly constructed
and built from materials that have weathered well.
Although innovative in appearance, it incorporates
tried and tested elements of traditional
construction; arguably the architecture gives new
expression to established urban form and tectonics.
Where the building is less successful, though not
untypical of its period, is the poor acoustic
separation from the noise of the city and
neighbouring flats. Casa Rustici was developed for
solid middle class residents; according to Etlin the
inventiveness of the building is not confined to the
external appearance and the planning of the
penthouse.18 Almost alone among commentators, he
notes the importance given in contemporary
accounts to the provision of light, flexible and open
interiors. Despite the loss of original refinements,
the flats are successful domestic spaces.
More recent buildings lining Corso Sempione
include slab blocks lateral to the street, devaluing its
character. In an age dominated by a questionable
vogue for iconic buildings, it is instructive to see how
Terragni reconciled the creation of an object with
the morphology of the urban block. Achieving a rich
material character was an intrinsic characteristic of
the work of the Italian Rationalists several of
Terragnis apparently rendered buildings, such as his
Como apartment buildings, were in fact faced with
tiny pieces of white marble [2, 28].
Though the reality of the building today may
not match the brooding glamour of the
contemporary photos, Casa Rustici is still a building
of compelling character, a convincing model for
sensitive urban architecture [14, 17]. To inhabit a
great building is to be given the opportunity of

criticism arq . vol 14 . no 2 . 2010

seeing beyond the myths perpetuated by pictorial

and theoretical paradigms. Critics tend to dismiss
Terragnis Milanese work as no more than a
reconciliation with the normative constraints of
professional practice. If so, then perhaps there are
more pertinent lessons to be learned from these

Notes
1. Peter Eisenman, Giuseppe Terragni:
Transformations, Decompositions,
Critiques (New York: Monacelli,
2003).
2. Luciano Patetta, The Five Milan
Houses, Lotus International, 20
(1978), 3233.
3. Daniele Vitale, An Analytic
Excavation: Ancient and Modern,
Abstraction and Formalism in the
Architecture of Giuseppe Terragni,
9H, 7 (1985), 54; Michael Bell,
Having Heard Mathematics: the
Topologies of Boxing, in Slow Space,
ed. by Michael Bell and Sze Tsung
Leong (New York: The Monacelli
Press, Inc., 1998), pp. 78119.
4. Patetta, pp. 3233.
5. Vitale, p. 20.
6. Patteta, p. 32.
7. Panos Koulermos, Terragni,
Lingeri and Italian Rationalism,
AD (March 1963), 108109; 13132
(p. 131).

projects than the unfettered polemics of the Casa

del Fascio, SantElia School or Giuliani-Frigerio
apartments. Preoccupation with the formal
properties of his output has deflected attention from
the everyday currency and relevance that Terragni
achieved at the Casa Rustici.

8. Vitale, p. 20.
9. Dennis P. Doordan, Building
Modern Italy, 5th edn (New York:
Princeton Architectural Press,
1988), p. 20.
10. Bell, p. 89.
11. Doordan, pp. 12325.
12. Thomas L. Schumacher, Surface
and Symbol: Giuseppe Terragni and
the Architecture of Italian
Rationalism (London: Longman
Group uk Ltd, 1991), p. 219.
13. Schumacher, p. 219.
14. Enrico Mantero, Serie di
architettura/17, Il Razionalismo
Italiano, 1st edn (Bologna:
Zanichelli Editore, 1984), p. 59.
15. Schumacher, p. 220.
16. Richard A. Etlin, Modernism in
Italian Architecture, 18901940
(Massachusetts: Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, 1991),
p. 271.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.

Illustration credits
arq gratefully acknowledges:
John Allan, Berthold Lubetkin: Architecture
and the Tradition of Progress
(London: riba Publications, 1992),
26, 27
Archivio Giuseppe Terragni Como,
312, 14, 16, 21, 24
Simon McCormack, 1, 2, 13, 15, 17, 19,
20, 22, 23, 25, 28, 29
Biography
Simon McCormack lived in Milan and
worked at Studio Ferrante Villa in
198687. He now lives in London and is
an architect at Thomas Ford & Partners,
having previously worked at Stanton
Williams and Avanti Architects.
Authors address
Simon McCormack
Thomas Ford & Partners
177 Kirkdale, Sydenham
London,se26 4qh
[email protected]

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