«Un punto di vista come un altro». Su un quartiere di Milano nella poesia di Luciano Erba
"A point of view like any other". On a district of Milan in Luciano Erba's poetry

Summary/Abstract: Spatial Criticism has recently highlighted the relationships between city planning in Milan, contemporary poetry, and neighbourhood life. This paper focuses on the emblematic case of a project promoted in via Solari by the Società Umanitaria, as represented in Quartiere Solari by Luciano Erba (1983). The wealth of documentation on the Beruto plan and on the project by the architect Broglio makes it possible to analyse the original objectives and the failure of the city plan as rendered in Erba’s poem. A first survey focuses on critical essays Erba dedicated to the Milanese housing repertoire (villino, condominio, terrazzo) and other poems dedicated to the Lombard suburbs between 1983 and 2002. The paper then proceeds on a comparative basis, underlining the differences between Erba’s urban poems and those of other Milanese poets. The results obtained through the comparison enable us to point out Erba’s predilection for early Liberty architecture and the rhetorical strategies used to represent the experience of urban spaces on a local scale. Here it is proposed that Erba formed his sensibility for architecture in the 1980s and that critics have emphasized his interest in the following decade. The conclusions envisage the psychological effects of the Liberty suburbs on Erba, in terms of a sense of inconclusiveness, a premonition of detachment, and a necessary memorial recovery.

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