Quartering as an aspect of Italy’s post-unification urban development: the case of Milan’s parade ground

Abstract

This work addresses the relationship between the Italian city-making process following Unification (1861) and the development of military settlements up to the 1920s. The hypothesis presented here is that the building of military settlements and the redevelopment of spaces with new functions, arguably, shaped Italian cities over this period by implementing urban renewal processes and city expansion. Through my analysis, I claim that defence planning had an amenable effect upon the decision-making process of urban planning schemes. In addition, this paper claims that this process has impacted the location of military settlements in ways that boosted the economic and urban images of the city. I do this through a detailed case study of Milan’s parade ground. Here, I found that the parade ground dismantling and relocation from the urban centre towards the periphery happened twice, relied on a specific narrative, and was catalysed by two mega-events. I demonstrate that defence planning plays a secondary role in boosting these operations aimed both at replacing military settlements with newly emerging functions and displacing the unwanted functions in the periphery.