Milan and the public green space

Milan and public parks: scenes, challenges and models

The numerous urban regeneration interventions launched in Milan for over a decade are profoundly redesigning the neighborhoods around the historic center, often giving a new identity to degraded or anonymous areas. This transformation is increasingly accompanied by the creation of new green poles in the urban fabric, to the point that parks and gardens are proposed as iconic places in the metropolitan landscape and driving forces of social life. The greenery, often entrusted in the design to the real estate investment companies that carry out the regeneration, is characterized by the adoption of trends and practices from northern Europe, revolutionizing historical models. Managing and maintaining what has been achieved today will be the great challenge for the municipal administrations and civil society of tomorrow.

The park as a new square

If for centuries the places dedicated to meeting, playing and carrying out events were the squares, today in the new districts they are disappearing, probably for the effects of the failure of many urban planning experiments at the end of the twentieth century. The park, on the other hand, if designed according to quality criteria, gives the neighborhoods a strong identity and stimulates social activism, becoming to all intents and purposes the square of our century. In more than one case, it is often the private operator who promotes events and initiatives, according to an astute marketing action, which however does not lack significant implications for social cohesion. Guided tours to discover the botanical heritage, events for various age groups, small concerts, artistic installations guarantee the constant presence of citizens in the park.

However, a lesson that seems to have been understood by the municipality, even where there is no private foundation to intervene. If once the municipal administrations delegated the social attraction of the park to the playground, today a cultural planning that includes green areas is consolidating; simple elements are introduced in the design that attract different audiences: areas dedicated to children’s parties, equipped study areas, bookcrossing, table tennis and freely available bowling alleys.

The quality of designing

The unprecedented centrality of the urban park brings with it as an intrinsic aspect the importance of the design and planning of all its components, reconnecting the threads with the illustrious Italian tradition of landscape, abruptly interrupted in the years of the economic boom and building speculation. What can be seen at the Biblioteca degli Alberi, at City Life, but also at Porta Vittoria, at Portello or at Cascina Merlata is a far cry from what was visible up to a decade ago and from what still happens today in many Italian towns, where the creation of green spaces is often limited to the simple planting of some trees around playgrounds, completely neglecting the aesthetic, chromatic, sensorial component of the planted species or even the design of the paths, traced on paper without any attention to perspectives, framing of the surrounding landscape or solar radiation; the same could be said on the absence of works of art or the lack of care in the choice of street furniture, which, even if purchased on the serial market, should integrate with the specificity of the place.

The Milanese examples cited instead set themselves as a model for other municipalities, with public and private sectors which together have guaranteed the presence of high-quality spaces, enriching the life of the user. Thus, the city tradition of the nineteenth-century English park is recovered in a contemporary key, in which the landscape alternated between picturesque and sublime views, among rocailles, false ruins, small temples and ponds, now replaced by captivating sculptures, design seats, infinity fountains.

New attention to botanical data

The design quality is reflected in the choice of trees, identified not only for their climatic resistance, but also for the size of the crown, foliage, blooms and sculptural appearance of the trunks. If in the past flowers were almost banned from public gardens, today there is a notable return of blooms, thanks to the use of perennials, herbaceous and grasses plants, mixed together, following the Dutch Wave trend. This guarantees shaded and fluffy effects all year round. Even the meadow areas are decreasing in favor of areas where local herbaceous and grasses survive the intense heat. Where instead the lawn prevails, the frequency of the cuts decreases, allowing a spontaneous growth of the different species, where insects, especially bees, find nourishment and protection.

Between drought and extreme weather events

The long periods of drought and the scarce but intense rains require unprecedented design and botanical choices. The park of Porta Vittoria, designed by Laura Gatti, is the first large-scale experiment in Italy of what is already present abroad: the rain garden, born in the 1980s in the United States and subsequently tested in the north of the old continent. The earthworks allowed the creation of paths, embankments and slopes capable of conveying rainwater into small channels where it is slowly absorbed by the ground, while promoting the proliferation of plants sown there, capable of withstanding at the same time long periods of drought and to purify rainwater. They are mostly herbaceous plants and shrubs that grow spontaneously along rivers, canals or in wet meadows. An experiment that imposes a new mindset on the citizen, forced to respect the islands and canals, called to appreciate the rustic beauty of many traditionally despised species and invited to reflect on how desirable it is to introduce such designed gardens elsewhere.

The vegetable garden

If centuries ago there was no clear distinction between the garden and the vegetable garden, between the 19th and 20th centuries the gap widened, especially in Italy, where, despite the growing urbanization of the last century, the municipalities rarely care about the importance of offer neighborhood gardens within urban green areas. The consequence of this was the birth of spontaneous vegetable gardens on the margins of the metropolis, and only with the new millennium, a popular push from below, in imitation of experiences beyond the Alps, lead to the diffusion of community gardens, almost always, however, outside the city ​​parks. Slowly the garden seems to regain its former dignity, finding a place in parks in the shadow of skyscrapers and its crops, especially aromatic ones, leave the confines of “potager” to adorn flowerbeds and paths in a simple and resilient way. In addition to vegetable gardens, beehives, ponds, butterfly flowerbeds and artificial insect shelters are finding more and more space between houses and buildings.

An educational park

Finally, the pedagogical intent that the green areas are assuming is increasingly evident. Visiting a park in Milan also means getting closer to the knowledge of nature. The entrance to each park provides for the installation of signs, often also for the blind people, which illustrate its origins, design, routes, trees, like any other city monument. Explanatory tags, QR codes enrich the paths and, in the case of the Biblioteca degli Alberi, the specific names of the essences that distinguish the “circular rooms” of the park have become large floor writings. Simple practices, but worthy of repeating.