Silvia Micheli

Fascism, Architecture, and the Claiming of Modern Milan, 1922–1943

articulated set of theoretical commitments, reveals Allan’s capacity for writing engaging cultural history. To read this book is not only to learn a great deal about a set of influential architectural projects by Berthold Lubetkin, it is a cogent portrait of a society in transition: its planning problems, its building regulations, its constructional habits and its cultural tastes. These are all brought together through the eyes of this energetic, politically engaged and personally ambitious architect. Architecturally, the portrait of Lubetkin is complex. There is no mistaking Allan’s admiration for Lubetkin’s work. But its failings and its obvious sources of inspiration are also brought unfailingly to the reader’s attention. Allan recognises, for example, that some of Lubetkin’s most salient motifs and planning devices had already been developed by others. His emphasis on the promenade at Highpoint, for example – the sense of formalised passage through a series of changing space – was overtly indebted to Le Corbusier, as was his propensity for a curving entrance canopy in counterpoint to a strictly rectilinear arrangement in the main block. On one or two occasions the long gestation of the book is revealed by seemingly odd comparisons, such as when Allan makes an argument for the complexity and contradiction of Highpoint Two – the building that controversially included two prominently placed caryatids supporting the entrance canopy. The unmistakable impression is that Allan wrote the section, or at least structured his thinking about Highpoint, around an architectural problematic introduced by Robert Venturi in the late 1960s. But this sense of being out of sync, or unconcerned with scholarly trends, is also a strength of Allan’s book. It is not as though the book is lacking in ideas. Allan’s discussion of Lubetkin’s attempts to resolve the perennial tension between formal innovation and political and social utility is one of the most engaging I have read. The book’s long period of research also perhaps accounts for its immense size. It weighs too much to be easily carried around, and the load could have been lightened by the omission of some of the pictorial material. I am not convinced, for example, that the inclusion of Lubetkin’s report card from his time studying at the Warsaw Polytechnic is really justified. Nevertheless, in terms of architectural publishing, where over-scaled, empty gestures are all too common, this book sits decisively on the other side of the ledger. It is a work of genuine scholarship and a handsomely illustrated volume that rewards both deep reading and casual perusal.