The Milan of the ’40s and ’60s, thanks to the genius – and inspiration – of the engineer Mario Cavallè, showed great creativity by creating a sort of "street of gnomes". In 1946, in fact, he built 12 "mini-houses" in the shape of Igloos (all importing a U.S. housing model) and, in the sixties, completed the work with two additional homes in the shape of Mushrooms.
Unfortunately, the "mushrooms" were demolished, while the "igloos" remain to this day and are eight. We went to see them and… it’s really weird, dear Imbruttiti.
We are, in fact, in Via Lepanto Maggiolina area – close to the railway – and, among houses of "normal stature" and architecture more or less pleasant but definitely usual, we find these "gnomes" of brick and cement that catapult us into the past. A journey back in time that gives us a feeling between the melancholic (some are similarly abandoned and desolate) and the fairy-tale (the idea of how they could be in the past and, in particular, in the sixties imbued with philosophy flower power that could give a sense to the neighborhood).
