Urban Domestic Landscape. Architecture and Design of the Bourgeois House: A Cultural Heritage of the Act of Dwelling

The critical observation of high-bourgeois urban houses, with a particular attention to the ones of that enlightened entrepreneurial bourgeoisie characterizing modernity in Milan during the 1959s and 1960s, helps to identify a number of common specificities which are still valid within the current notion of "project of design." In this sense, the use of a discrete, never flaunted image, the sequence of generous spaces, the quality and modernity of material and the ease for invention and creativity give reason to a notion of luxury which is perfectly measured according to rules of style following the pleasures of the social life. The present writing investigates the scenario of the high-bourgeois world through projects which show the relationship between the client and the architect and between architecture and design. In doing so, it highlights how the observed case studies represent the attempt of achieving a domestic ideal which nowadays has become an integral part of the act of dwelling -, founded upon the privilege of affording the latest trend.