BRENTANO RESIDENCE - PALAZZO LITTA -

MILAN

Palazzo Litta is one of the most important baroque buildings in Milan. It was commissioned from the architect Francesco Maria Ricchino by Count Bartolomeo Arese, around the middle of the seventeenth century. From 1873 it was the headquarters of a private railway company and was later taken over by the Italian State Railways, which in the early twentieth century extended the building towards the garden. Part of its original splendour was lost due to war damage and uncontrolled alterations. However, the building retains its most distinctive features on its long main front in Corso Magenta, designed by Bartolomeo Bolli, and in the rear courtyard of honour, attributed to Ricchino. Within this complex, aMDL was appointed to renovate a number of properties of varying quality and substance, built in different periods on the same estate, facing via Illica and via Brentano. The brief specified the configuration of an exclusive residential area around a small inner garden. The project includes the exhaustive restoration and functional improvement of the more significant buildings, and the complete reconstruction of parts especially studied to compare and effectively integrate with their historic built context.