A house for the Anonymous. Towards a dignified social dwelling. BBPR and Le Grazie district in Legnano

Abstract

Le Grazie district in Legnano, Italy, was the first social housing project of the BBPR studio (Banfi, Belgiojoso, Peressutti and Rogers), built between 1939 and 1942. The project constituted a laboratory of ideas in which to reflect on collective housing, with a critical view of rationalism, in order to establish the principles of a new modern architecture that would respond to a dignified social habitat. The aim of this article is to take up the bases enunciated by BBPR for the design of social housing and to offer an instrument that qualifies the popular domestic space. The research is based on the original documentation of the basic project obtained from the historical archive of Legnano, as well as photographs and sketches by the author. The structure of the text responds to these project mechanisms established by the studio for the design of its proposals: order, common space, the home, and the built form. Finally, it reflects on the tools resulting from the development of the project, their application, and their validity in the rest of the studio's social projects.