When the railways ploughed into the centres of cities in the 19th century they left in their wake dark, sooty labyrinths of brick-encased tunnels, arches and vaults. Now these old, time-stained arches look almost like something from another civilisation.
Dirty, noisy, and often accessed via narrow alleyways, railway arches have been, for most of the modern era, cheap real estate, often occupied by businesses that we would also rather not see or hear: garages, workshops, wholesale markets, clubs, miscellaneous dodgy enterprises. But, akin to the Roman aqueducts, they have their own kind of grandeur.
In Milan, Dropcity is a visionary reimagining of 40,000 sq m of railway infrastructure down the side of the city’s Centrale Station, along the Via Sammartini. It is created as a hub for making for those who struggle to afford studio rents in the world’s capital of design, together with a public exhibition, events and workshop space — and a drop-in design and technology lab for amateur enthusiasts. This month, 18 vaults, with a minimal white finish, new concrete floors and slick lighting, are welcoming visitors with an inaugural exhibition and events programme — an opening that dovetails with Milan Design Week. Twelve more vaults will be completed next year.
The idea is down to architect-entrepreneur Andrea Caputo. In 2018, Caputo embarked on a series of complex negotiations with both the municipality of Milan and Grandi Stazioni Retail, which managed the space. He had noticed a gap between the upscale but temporary spaces created for Milan’s design and fashion weeks, and the day-to-day world of the designers themselves. In some ways, it was understandable: “Why would [somebody rent their] building to designers,” he says, “when in a few days over fashion week or design week [they] can get the big brands to come in, and make as much money as [they] would from a whole year of rent to a studio?” Railway arches, he decided, were the solution — and a new opportunity.
Milan has “the highest density of architects and designers in Europe: there are 12,000 architects practising here.” Caputo says. “But what is missing is the culture of doing things for yourself, a sense of making things. There are very few workshops and rent is expensive. This is an opportunity for us to get our hands dirty.”
Ironically, these historic vaults now look remarkably clean. Last year, they test-opened to the public during Milan’s design week: they were dark, raw and dirty, their brickwork and concrete stained by decades of use and neglect — a theatrical backdrop for high-tech machines and crisp new designs. “The last time the vaults were used,” Caputo says, “was as a fish market. And that was abandoned 40 years ago.”
Today, they have been transformed into what Caputo refers to as “labs”. With 400 desks complete with ergonomic seating and monitors, as well as workshops, meeting rooms and drafting rooms, they are ready to welcome their first occupants. Alongside workshops for both high and low-tech craft are studios for photography, video and audio recording. There is also a materials library with products categorised in terms of environmental impact, and a study centre for upcycling.
The parade of arches is interconnected, so that exhibition visitors can weave through from one to the other, occasionally snaking back out to the street. A show on French architects Bruther, and one on the architecture of detention centres, are both on until the end of May.
But Dropcity is more than this — it is effectively a new neighbourhood, promising to bring life to a street that was once a traffic-choked thoroughfare. Caputo’s team has also redesigned the public spaces, with a new cycle lane, paving and planting. The new, more leisurely pace allows walkers to take in the solid stone fronts and delicate wrought ironwork of the arches. It being Milan, there is of course a café, and a restaurant will be completed by autumn.
Caputo shows me a map of the distribution of designers working in Milan. Unlike in almost any city I can think of, they are not concentrated in a single neighbourhood, a hipster enclave or a post-industrial quarter, but rather spread evenly all over the city.
“Milan has some wonderful institutions, like the Triennale [museum of art and design],” Caputo says, “but the network is very disconnected, there is no daily exchange to provoke interactions.” Dropcity hopes to change that. At its centre is a new public library of books about architecture and design, integrated with the city’s public library system. “There has never been such a thing,” he says.
Having managed to acquire the archive of renowned graphic designer and writer Italo Lupi (1934-2023) creator of, among other things, logos for Miu Miu and Fiorucci, Caputo also hopes this will be the start of an expanding design archive of international interest.
But who, I ask, has funded this huge venture? “Well,” he laughs, “me.” He is very far from an oligarch, though, he says, and what he means is that he has scraped together funding from various institutions including universities ETH Zurich, SCI-Arch LA and London’s Central Saint Martins. He does, I note, look a little tired. It seems a remarkable achievement. The next question, though, in this city in which design is elevated to a religion, is who is it for?
“It’s for everyone,” Caputo says. “We have workspaces set up for designers with double screens and large desks. But if people just want to use the library, they can. And we have access to very modern machines like five-axis CNC arms [for carving forms out of solid material] which designers or students can hire very cheaply — machines they would not have access to [otherwise].”
It is not just for professional designers. “It’s an absolutely public project,” he says. “You might be doing up your kitchen and you can rent workshop space here, cutting out surfaces or making cabinets. Monday to Friday, nine to five, it’s for professionals. At the weekends it’s for families and kids, encouraging them into design. There are ceramic workshops, screen printing, textile and glass labs. It’s all here.”
The diversity of users promises to make this a place of unexpected interactions and inspirations. There is much here that other cities could learn from: they are always dotted with unused or underused space. Perhaps it just takes an architect to spot them. And then an epic amount of vision, energy and collaboration to bring them back to life.
dropcity.org
Edwin Heathcote is the FT’s architecture and design critic
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