Milan’s first department store front in iron and glass — and, according to Treccani, the most significant thing Luigi Broggi ever built.
At a glance
The Magazzini Contratti building stands at Via Tommaso Grossi 8, in the banking quarter just off Piazza Cordusio. It was designed by Luigi Broggi (1851–1926), who had already built several of the palaces around Cordusio, and raised in the first years of the century. The national heritage catalogue dates the work 1901–1903; Treccani’s biography of the architect gives 1902–03.
History
Cordusio was then being rebuilt as Milan’s financial centre, and a department store on its edge was a statement about a new kind of commerce. Broggi’s answer was a front of glass, framed to admit as much daylight as possible into the sales floors — the technical problem that department stores across Europe were solving in exactly those years. Today only the structure of the front survives; the interior has been rebuilt for other uses.
What you see
The facade is organised around very large openings, with iron framing and wide glazed bays fitted with balconies and metal railings. Between and above them run cement sculpture and low reliefs, with cast-iron colonnettes dividing the great windows. The effect is deliberately light: the wall reads as a frame for glass rather than as masonry. Sources differ on the load-bearing structure, some describing an iron frame and others reinforced concrete, both then novel in Milan.
Cultural significance
Treccani calls this Broggi’s most significant work and one of the most interesting examples of the Italian floral style. It matters twice over: as ornament, because it applies Art Nouveau to commerce rather than to a private house, and as construction, because it belongs to the moment when Milanese builders started treating the street front as a glazed screen. Everything that Milan later did with shop windows begins somewhere around here.
Key facts
- Architect: Luigi Broggi (1851–1926)
- Built: 1901–1903 (national heritage catalogue); 1902–03 in Treccani
- Original use: department store
- Front: iron framing, large glazed bays, cement reliefs, cast-iron colonnettes
- Address: Via Tommaso Grossi 8, Milan
- Coordinates: 45.4656 N, 9.1853 E
Practical information & getting there
Metro M1 Cordusio, one minute on foot. The building is in commercial use; the facade is visible from the street at any hour, and it is best read from the opposite pavement, where the whole glazed front comes into view. La Scala and the Duomo are both within five minutes.
Sources & resources
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