A triangular plot with an impossible angle, and an architect who turned the problem into the front of the building.
At a glance
Casa Sartorio stands at Via Piacenza 13, on the corner with Via Gian Carlo Passeroni, a short walk from Porta Romana. It was built in 1909 to a design by the architect Enrico Provasi, on a triangular plot that closes at a very sharp angle.
History
The street pattern south of Porta Romana was laid out piecemeal as the city grew beyond its old customs barrier, and it left behind lots that no conventional plan could fill. Provasi took one of the worst of them. The comparison Milanese guides reach for is the Flatiron Building in New York, finished seven years earlier, which had made the acute-angled block famous; the resemblance is of situation rather than of influence, and at a fraction of the scale.
What you see
The two fronts are strongly vertical, with Liberty ornament distributed evenly across them. Everything, though, is organised around the corner: a three-light bay window at ground level and a second at the top floor, with two balconies set between them, so that the sharp angle is read as a single tall element rather than as a weakness. In the handling of the corner and the drawing of the ironwork, guides to the quarter point to the example of Victor Horta in Brussels.
Cultural significance
Liberty in Milan is generally judged on its ornament. Casa Sartorio is worth looking at for its plan: a difficult site turned into the identity of the building, which is a modern instinct rather than a decorative one. It has become one of the recognised landmarks of the Porta Romana quarter for exactly that reason.
Key facts
- Architect: Enrico Provasi
- Built: 1909
- Site: triangular plot at the corner of Via Piacenza and Via Gian Carlo Passeroni
- Corner elevation: two three-light bay windows, ground and top floor, with two balconies between
- Address: Via Piacenza 13, Milan
- Coordinates: 45.4495 N, 9.2050 E
Practical information & getting there
Metro M3 Lodi T.I.B.B., about eight minutes on foot. A private apartment building. The corner is the visit and it needs to be seen from a distance, from the junction itself, where both fronts converge. Casa Comolli is ten minutes away in the same quarter.
Sources & resources
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