Introduction

"... we tried to get [the] area set up with a sports field and swimming pool… Ideally, a sports field could be built and we would be free to use it, and on the rest of the property in front of the milk bottling plant, we would have a priority claim if in the future it were to be reserved for construction".

This is what University Managing Director, Girolamo Palazzina, wrote on 25 July 1940 to University Vice President and philosopher, Giovanni Gentile. Together they planned an expansion, which building after building, would lead to today's campus.

Bocconi University is synonymous with a specific area of Milan known today s “Zona Bocconi”. The campus characterizes the area in many ways, including through the university's architecture and the history behind the construction of each of its buildings, creating a very strong link between city and campus. It all started in the early years of the 20th century, when entrepreneur Ferdinando Bocconi’s idea to elevate economic studies to university status began to take shape in a building on Via Statuto, the first location of Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, named after his son who died in the battle of Adwa.

Bocconi’s intuition proved to be correct, as more and more students crowded the classrooms and during the 1930s, the search for a new location began. Thus, after lengthy negotiations, the municipality of Milan granted Bocconi a plot of land to be redeveloped, located outside the city walls between Via Sarfatti and Via Castiglioni. The university administration also obtained the right of preemption on the surrounding areas, certain that this growth was more than a temporary phenomenon, and that it was necessary to prepare the ground for future generations. Starting in 1941, the campus evolved with work by great architects such as Giuseppe Pagano and Giovanni Muzio, leading up to the modern expansion plans, including “Bocconi 2000” by Gardella and Ceretti, along with the most recent developments by the Irish firm Grafton and the Japanese firm SANAA. The latter seems to follow Pagano’s original dream, as – when designing the first building on Via Sarfati 25 – he had already imagined setting up sports facilities and swimming pools in the vacant area in front of the building. Today it is a dream fulfilled at Bocconi, which boasts one of the largest urban campuses in Europe, a reference point in terms of both academics and urban planning.

This exhibit by the university's library tells precisely this story, or rather, the many stories that intertwine Milan university life and architectural developments both in Italy and abroad.