Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II of Does It Take for a Mall to Be a Monument?

Every self-respecting shopping mall in the world wants to be the Galleria. That is why we find this word in the name of so many…The word ‘Galleria’ is a sign that marks a certain aspiration, a commercial structure imbued with a sense of grandeur, generosity, opulence and nobility. ’I am a Galleria!’ the mall loudly proclaims and hopes that the word will be enough to manifest these qualities with its walls. But the high-minded aspirations are easily lost in the lazy logic of profit and practicality that strips the name Galleria of its meaning leaving behind an empty word suspended above the revolving glass doors on the threshold where the city becomes mall. This film is about a structure that, more than any other, infused the word Galleria with that sense of wonder monumentality, glamour and affluence that so many commercial structures are striving for in vain. Milan’s majestic shopping arcade built during the 1860s brought into being the ideal of ‘the Galleria’, a reminder of what a commercial structure can do for it’s city when a proper balance between the public and the private is achieved. The word ‘Galleria’ would be superfluous on the monumental arch that marks its entrance. Instead, we find here an inscription ‘A Vittorio Emanuele II. I Milanesi’ - The people of Milan dedicating their shopping arcade to Vittorio Emanuele II, the king of Piedmont-Sardinia who in 1961 became the first king of unified Italy. The dedication was a strategic choice aimed not only to express commitment to the new nation state but, more importantly to flatter the new king and ensure his support for this big construction project for the center of Milan. The king did end up backing the project but still the vast amounts of demolition and construction required were well beyond what the local authorities could afford. Milan’s Galleria was therefore financed by a method well known to us today - a Public Private Partnership. British capital was lured in by the prospect of profits to be gleaned in the process of tuning the old fabric of Milan to its highest and best use. The contract was drawn between the British Company and Milan’s Municipality and the hybrid character of the Galleria as ‘a path a building and a piazza all at once’ helped to strike a balance between the public and private interests. British Investors would provide the bulk of the financing and as a result take ownership of all the buildings making up the Galleria and piazza Duomo, the private sphere of the project that could be rented out for profit. The public sphere of the project, the paths and the piazzas will be in the hands of the City of Milan, who will share the cost of their construction with the British Investors. Most Importantly, the plan, a clear vision for the new galleria as an instrument for transforming the heart of Milan was provided by the Municipality. It took years and years of laborious discussions, competitions and negotiations to finally gave rise to this plan as well as the right man to carry it out. The Milanese elites weren’t all that trilled that the Bolognese, Megnoni, an outsider to Milanese and Lombard architectural culture had obtained the most prestigious commission of the period. But Megoni was exactly the man for the job, a type of architect that turns plans into reality, able to skillfully navigate, coordinate and give shape to a complex vortex of conflicting interests and forces from legislative issues, political choices, public and private interests, symbolic intentionality, structural problems, functional needs, logistical challenges… As the General Director of all the construction work, including artistic, technical and management aspects, for years, Megnoni gave his blood sweat and tears, to realize the Galleria and the transformation Milan’s heart for the modern age. He died by falling from the scaffolding of the Galleria’s Entrance Arch just a few days before it’s inauguration. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This short film was written edited, narrated and animated by myself, the creator of Spatial Snowflakes and a dedicated disciple of the spatial arts. However, the creation of this film would not be possible without me freely using and modifying content created by others. At 7:15 and 7:24 I used footage from these two videos: Much gratitude to the creators, I needed some contemporary footage of the Galleria but was unable to travel to Milan and film it myself. The source for the majority of images used in the film is Wikimedia Commons. The music in the film is taken from these pieces by Giuseppe Verdi: