Laporte House

Gio Ponti – Antonio Fornaroli – Eugenio Soncini, via Benedetto Brin 12, Milan Italy, 1935-1936

The building in Via Brin represents the pinnacle of the reflections on the house carried out throughout the 1930s (so much so that it was chosen as the standard housing project to be presented at the VI Triennale), but it is also the episode of maximum contact between Ponti's architecture and the principles of rationalism.    

The house is divided into three different apartments, of which the last one – organized on two levels – was the architect’s home for a short period. The basement contains service spaces such as garages, cellars, laundry and central heating system, while the ground floor houses the decentralized entrance with the staircase distributing all the units and access to the garden. Each floor has its own planimetric development, but all the apartments are organized around a central atrium that distributes the sleeping area on one side – isolated by a hallway served by built-in wardrobes, with the furnishings integrated into the structure of the house – and the living area on the other, where the fusion between the living room and dining room takes place in a single, large space, already anticipated in the Domus of via De Togni (1931-1936). In the attic, this area of ​​the double-height house is in direct communication with the winter garden and the external terrace, inspired by Le Corbusier's theories on the roof garden and accompanied by the presence of a water basin, a sand field and a vegetable garden hidden behind the extension of the facades. This area is however perceptible - on the entrance front - thanks to a large rectangular opening, which seems to anticipate the theme of windows open to the sky developed in the second phase of Ponti's career (especially with the projects for churches).

Taken from the article by Manuela Leoni on the website of the Order of Architects of Milan