On Thursday, June 5, 2025, at 4:30 p.m., the Sala Otto Colonne of the Royal Palace in Milan will host the official presentation of the volume The Royal Pavilion of Milan’s Central Station. An Art Deco Masterpiece, edited by Fabio Mangone and published by Cimorelli Editore. The book constitutes the editorial outcome of the current exhibition project of the same name, which will remain open until June 29, 2025 inside the Sala della Lanterna of the Royal Palace. The initiative, promoted by the Department of Culture of the City of Milan and produced by Fondazione FS Italiane together with Palazzo Reale, is part of a broader path of valorization and historical research on twentieth-century architecture, with particular attention to the places of railway mobility.
This volume focuses on the Royal Pavilion attached to Milan’s Central Station, proposing a historical-critical rereading of it starting with archival materials and photographic and documentary evidence preserved in the Archives of the Fondazione FS Italiane, the Archives of Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (Milan) and the Civic Photographic Archive of the Municipality of Milan. What emerges is a narrative of an environment designed as an exclusive space for the reception of authorities and members of the ruling house, but also as an expression of an architectural language capable of merging functionality and representation, modernity and memory.
In fact, the Royal Pavilion is presented as an example of howArt Deco has also found a place in Italian railway architecture. Stylistic elements that can be traced back to this movement, characterized by a geometric and decorative aesthetic at the same time, emerge in the attention to detail, in the choices of furnishings and in the elaboration of surfaces. The research contained in the volume and the related exhibition apparatus emphasize the role played by Art Deco as a trait d’union between the formal vitality of modernity and the need for continuity with the Italian building tradition.
The Pavilion bears witness to a moment of contamination between engineering, design and the decorative arts, which occurred in a context, that of Milan in the 1930s, traversed by cultural tensions and a strong drive for innovation. The exhibition at Palazzo Reale accompanies the publication with a wide selection of exhibition materials, including historical photographs, technical and original design drawings, furniture and objects of use. The materials on display offer a detailed look at the genesis and evolution of the Pavilion, documenting the stages of conception, implementation and subsequent conservation. Various institutional and professional figures involved in the project took part in the presentation of the volume. Among the speakers were the Milan City Councilor for Culture, Domenico Piraina, Director of the Culture Directorate and the Royal Palace, Luigi Cantamessa, General Manager of Fondazione FS Italiane and CEO of FS Treni Turistici Italiani, and Simone Percacciolo, Head of the Enhancement of the Royal Palace of Milan.
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| The Royal Pavilion at Milan's Centrale: volume on Art Deco architecture published |
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