Art Nouveau in Milano

Following our visit in Milano where I went last week, I take you to the Via Menotti in the east side of Milano, not very far from the very historic center. This street has several beautiful buildings, amongst them the number 18.

As you can see, exceptionnaly this building is well restored (so that the number 16 which will be subject of a future article here).

There are many things to admire on this masterpiece. The funny is that the architect put on this facade all the components of the art nouveau :

1/ animals : peacock on the windows – and lizard on the door. I have not any idea why these animals and why they are associated. Maybe the peacock  comes from Mucha masterpiece shown during the 1900 international exhibition in Paris, who knows.

2/ plants and flowers,

3/ geometric motives, there are a lot in this facade – they are originals since I have not seen any similars in other milanese buildings,

4/ Sgraffites

5/ wrought iron on the balconies,

6/ differents colors,

The lacking component is a masceron …

This building is high enough to contain 4 floors more the ground floor – as well as the others building on its left and right side. The avenue is quite large and the building is placed in front of a 80’s college building.

The street is quite interesting because there are many beautiful buildings of the last century, not necessary Liberty style.

Again, I have not seen any tourists in this quarter.

To conclude I have the deep impression that italians are not very fond of their local art nouveau style (called there Liberty).  I am not sure either that artistic researchers on art nouveau gave importance to the italian version… For instance, in the book called “Art Nouveau, International and national styles in Europe” written by Jeremy Howard, which is a reference on this subject, there is no chapter on Italy (but yes there are on France, Belgium, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Finland, Russia, Czech…).

To let you have a vision of the whole building as it is, please see these following pictures. Hope that you like it as i do.

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(c) Nicolas Gueugnon