Travel – Page 6 – dsoderblog

Milano Centrale

May 16, 2006
by Dan Soderberg

The Milan Central Train Station is undergoing restoration. There’s not too much mention of this being an architecture of political statement. A looming Fascist monument. Designed in scale beyond anything human. It took more than 7 years to complete. A cavernous mountain of concrete and marble adorned with power icons. Ferocious beasts, Muscular men, angry gargoyles.
I was approached by an Italian gentleman while shooting pictures. He asked me if my interest was in the distinctive advertising displayed.
I replied it was the architecture.
He said this was a pet project of Benito “Duce” (“Duke”) Mussolini. A statement to the world about Milan’s importance as the railway hub for all of Europe. A show of Italian power.
The marble interior and barrel vault ceilings are impossibly high. A hall that breathes power. Loudspeaker announcements are like a frightening voice of God.
Yet amidst the hustle and bustle (train travel seems no less busy now than ever) there is a quiet. Sound radiates through the vast space and vanishes. The filtered sky lighting eases your senses.
Overall, an approach to architecture that occurs when a head of state is in love with the pomp and circumstance surrounding his bloated ego.

Click Clack Trolley Track

While the trolley street cars of San Diego and Los Angeles are only a memory, Milan, Italy, kept theirs from that same era in service. These vintage cars creak and clatter. They smell of fuzzy dusty machine grease oozing from joints and rivets. Doors, benches and interior siding all of varnished wood grain. A trolley driver works a worn shiny brass crank. A sign “don’t bother or harass the driver while the car is in motion.” And “trolley dodgers” are chased from tracks by a clanging bell. For three Euros ride all day–go on and off as you please. It’s a decidedly slower trip than the Underground. But the street car/trolley is a good and fun way for a tourist to enjoy a city’s scenery and street life. And the locals utilize it as well.

Trolley Servicing Milan, 1920’s. Milan Central Train Station