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 for the whole decade of the thirties (so much so as to be chosen as a type of housing project to be presented at the VI Triennale), but it is also the episode of maximum tangency of the Ponti's architecture with the principles of rationalism.

The house is divided into three different apartments, the last of which - organized on two levels - was the architect's home for a short period. In the basement there are service areas such as garages, cellars, laundry and central heating system, while the ground floor houses the decentralized entrance with the distribution staircase of all units and access to the garden. Each floor has its own planimetric development, but all the lodgings are articulated around a barycentric 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 by the the living area is another, where the fusion between living room and dining room takes place in a single, vast space, already anticipated in the Domus in 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 outdoor terrace, inspired by Le Corbusier's theories on the roof-garden and accompanied by the presence of a pool of water, a field of sand 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 open windows on the sky developed in the second phase of Ponti's career (especially with plans for churches) .

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