Milan Central Station, 1912

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Milan Central Station, 1912

Competition for Milan Central Station 1912

The need to reorganise Milan’s railway system following the nationalisation of the network and increased rail traffic led to the announcing in 1906 of the first competition for the New Milan Railway Station. The aim was to replace that which had been built in 1864 to the design of the Frenchman Louis-Jules Bouchot. The winning plans of Arrigo Cantoni did not however have an executive outcome so in 1912 the procuring body announced another call for bids. Antonio Sant’Elia drew up another submission from the Cantoni architectural firm in the form of a monumental glass and steel structure body supported by stone structures, heavily influenced by the works of Otto Wagner (see for example the cupola and the steel and glass gangway in of the Kaiser Franz Joseph-Stadtmuseum on the Karlplatz, the juxtaposition of stone and steel in the Ferdinandsbrücke and the piers of the Stadtbahn in Vienna). The plan, documented by a sketch of the front and contemporary photographs of some plates, was not however adopted by Cantoni who preferred to take part in the bidding with another project submitted in collaboration with the architect Vietti Violi. The adjudicating board, on which Camillo Boito and Gaetano Moretti sat, awarded first prize to the architect Ulisse Stacchini, with the works taking a very long time to complete; the station finally being inaugurated in 1931.

Nuova Stazione Centrale di Milano particolare della facciata con ingresso per le partenze