Past/present: recovery and reuse of the former Paolo Pini psychiatric hospital in Milan

Journal title TERRITORIO
Author/s Pierfranco Galliani
Publishing Year 2013 Issue 2013/65
Language Italian Pages 8 P. 93-100 File size 705 KB
DOI 10.3280/TR2013-065015
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The former Paolo Pini hospital in Milan, built between 1921 and 1924 at Affori, is a paradigmatic interpretation of the design of a modern psychiatric hospital, in which the rules governing the spatial distribution of the pavilions consisted of a selfreferencing morphological model, based on the scientific and spatial assumptions of separating patients, by gender, disease and treatment and of isolating them from the surrounding environment. Following the process of abandonment and reuse imposed by the 1978 ‘Basaglia Reform’, today the former hospital is an emblematic example of the delinking of architectural features and their meaning, which occurred with the change of the original uses and the informal growth of the outer city area. The architectural integration of the rigid morphological layout and the redesign of its borders are able today to give rise to a new formal and organisational order designed to enhance the identity of the place.

Keywords: Pavilion based morphological system; abandonment; urban recovery

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Pierfranco Galliani, Passato/presente: recupero e valorizzazione dell’ex ospedale psichiatrico Paolo Pini a Milano in "TERRITORIO" 65/2013, pp 93-100, DOI: 10.3280/TR2013-065015