Pierluigi Panza, author of the volume published by Marsilio Arte and entitled "La Scala. Architettura e città", walks us through the history of the famous Milanese institution
Despite alternating fortunes and a history that stretches back centuries, the Teatro alla Scala remains an emblem of Milan. Pierluigi Panza, author of the book published by Marsilio Arte and entitled La Scala. Architettura e città, tell us about its connection with the city and its architectural appearance. We asked him a few questions.
Teatro alla Scala has always been a destination and a symbol of Milan’s cultural life. How would you describe, in a few lines, the history of its transformations?
The transformations of the Teatro alla Scala mirror the political-social ones and, in turn, shape and determine the urban development of the city. Milan is reflected in the Scala and the Scala in Milan. The clearest episode in this relationship was the birth of Piazza della Scala, in the mid-nineteenth century, to provide adequate space in front of the theatre and to ensure that the two hubs of the secular centre of the city ‒ consisting of the Town Hall and the theatre ‒ faced each other. Even the choice to have the Scala be the first public building rebuilt after being destroyed by the bombings in 1943 attests to this bond.
The volume published by Marsilio Arte offers a “historical-morphological revisitation of the Scala”, as Mario Botta defined it in the introduction. What inspired you to embark on this editorial undertaking and how did you construct the narrative that characterises it?
I embody at least two characteristics necessary to create this volume: from an academic perspective I am an architectural historian and for thirty years I have also been following the activities of the Teatro alla Scala for the Corriere della Sera. Therefore, when the opportunity arose to write a history of the Scala with the completion of the works carried out by Mario Botta (who is also a friend), I was the right person and I did the job. I tried, in keeping with my convictions, to write a history of the building as correlated with and a consequence of cultural and social history, which is how I believe architecture ought to be approached since it is always interpretable. In this case in particular I took into account that the text was narrative and not technical: architecture must be showcased as a cultural fact and not in a self-referential way.
What role does the Teatro alla Scala play, from an architectural perspective and otherwise, in the landscape of Milan today?
Following the numerous interventions that have happened since 2002, La Scala constitutes a response to society’s and technological development’s need for transformation, oriented towards respect for the history of the European city. The theatre was built in a religious area originally developed in the Middle Ages, it was the new neoclassical face of Maria Theresa’s Milan, bearing traces of the 19th-century political changes that led to the birth of the unitary State and then the upheavals of the “Age of extremes” all the way to the post-modern period. Unlike other parts of the world where financial globalism works more easily through demolitions and replacements, here everything is kept. The European city is a land of memory and the theatre has also tried (although not always successfully throughout its history) to be a palimpsest of successive stratifications. We often talk about Piermarini’s theatre, but after Giuseppe Piermarini there were many architects who gave shape to the theatre and I want to remember at least three others: Alessandro Sanquirico, Luigi Lorenzo Secchi and, indeed, Mario Botta.
How do you imagine the future of the Teatro alla Scala?
The future has already begun. In his time as chief executive, Dominique Meyer has grasped the demands that, again, have come from global society, such as eco-sustainability, inclusiveness, digital transformation and streaming transmission. In the Third Millennium, architecture no longer engages just with physical space, but also with immaterial components. This will be the perspective that the new workshops of La Scala that will have to be built in the former industrial area of Rubattino will need to follow. This will be the intervention of the near future that will concern the theatre.
Interview by Arianna Testino
BIO
Pierluigi Panza is a writer, a journalist and an art and architecture critic. He writes for the Corriere della Sera and teaches at the Politecnico di Milano. He has many publications on art history to his credit, he is a member of the main Italian academies and he has won numerous awards.
Image captions:
Piazza della Scala seen from the theatre loggia, 2018. You can see the four flowerbeds around the monument to Leonardo da Vinci and the partial pedestrianisation of the area designed in 1992 by Paolo Portoghesi. Photo by Francesco Maria Colombo. Credit: Photographic Archive of the Teatro alla Scala, Milan
Giuseppe Piermarini, prospectus of the Teatro alla Scala, 1778, India ink, bistro, sanguine, 445 x 620 mm, Municipality of Foligno – Biblioteca comunale “Dante Alighieri”, Fondo Disegni Giuseppe Piermarini, 16. This is the final elevation with the bas-relief of the Chariot of Apollo in the tympanum, which was missing from the contract drawing and was made to be inserted by the Collegio dei nobili. Photo credit: Municipality of Foligno – Biblioteca comunale “Dante Alighieri”
The interiors of the Teatro alla Scala torn to pieces, 1943, Milan, Archive of the Museo Teatrale alla Scala, Milan, phot b 1948. The raids of 8, 15 and 16 August 1943 caused the destruction of the roof and the collapse of the theatre’s vault and hall. Photo credit: Archive of the Museo Teatrale alla Scala, Milan
Piazza della Scala completely empty during the lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the background, a crane witnesses the construction site for the new tower on Via Verdi. Photo Giovanni Hänninen. Credit: Photographic Archive of the Teatro alla Scala, Milan
La Scala at the end of the 2002-2004 renovation. The theatre now has 2015 seats, in the 18th century it held up to 3000 spectators or more. By removing linoleum and carpeting, blue was rediscovered in the archduke’s box (boxes 1 and 2 of the second order on the left) as it was at the time of Alessandro Sanquirico’s renovation in 1830. Since the reopening on 7 December 2004, each seat has been equipped with a booklet-display to follow the text of the opera. Credit: Photographic Archive of Teatro alla Scala, Milan [cover photo]
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