Before he built Milan’s Central Station, Ulisse Stacchini designed this small Viennese house for an industrialist who wanted three of them.
At a glance
Casa Donzelli stands at Via Revere 7, in the quiet grid of streets behind Corso Magenta. It was built to a design by Ulisse Stacchini — the regional heritage record dates the work 1909, the national heritage catalogue 1907 — the architect who would later build Milan’s monumental Central Station — and the regional heritage record calls it a thoroughly successful Milanese version of a typical Viennese Secession house.
History
The house is one of three small apartment buildings commissioned in the first years of the twentieth century by the industrialist Beniamino Donzelli (1863–1952); the other two stand in Via Tasso and Via Gioberti. Building three houses to the same purpose, in the same quarter and within a few years, was a way of investing industrial money in property while advertising a taste for the newest architecture.
What you see
Geometric and floral motifs alternate across the front. Small balconies carry wrought-iron balustrades by the master smith Alessandro Mazzucotelli, and the entrance door is decorated with stylised geometric patterns. The facade closes with a cornice bounded by a parapet, at whose outer ends double windows are set with anthropomorphic decoration. The heritage record singles out the interior fittings — the inner doors and, again, the ironwork — as the most valuable elements of all.
Cultural significance
The house documents the Viennese, rather than the Franco-Belgian, current of Milanese Liberty: straighter, more geometric, less floral. It also catches Stacchini early, fifteen years before the station that made his name, and shows how far his language would travel.
Key facts
- Architect: Ulisse Stacchini
- Built: 1909 (regional heritage record); 1907 in the national heritage catalogue
- Wrought iron: Alessandro Mazzucotelli
- Patron: Beniamino Donzelli (1863–1952), industrialist
- Style: Milanese Liberty in the Viennese Secession manner
- Address: Via Revere 7, Milan
- Coordinates: 45.4719 N, 9.1694 E
Practical information & getting there
Metro M1 Conciliazione or M2 Sant’Ambrogio, ten minutes on foot. It is a private apartment building: the facade is the visit. Casa Laugier, Villino Maria Luisa and Casa Dugnani are all within a fifteen-minute walk, which makes this the natural start of a Liberty circuit through Porta Magenta.
Sources & resources
Find it on the map
See this place and what’s around it →📷 Become a Cultural Heritage Online photographer
Share your photos of places: they stay published under your name as the author. The more they're seen, the more you get noticed — and soon a contest will reward the most appreciated photos.
Log in or sign up free to add a photoIs this page about you?
This page is read by travellers and heritage enthusiasts who find it on Google. Tell us how you are connected to this place and we will take it from there.