Monte Amiata Housing
Milan, Italy
Exterior only
Visible from the street; the inside is private.
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Completed in 1974, Monte Amiata Housing is a residential complex in the Gallaratese district of Milan designed by Carlo Aymonino and Aldo Rossi as an ambitious urban experiment. Sprawling across 120,912 square meters between Via Francesco Cilea and Via Enrico Falck, the complex comprises five distinctive red-brick buildings—two eight-story slabs, two three-story structures, and an interconnecting element—arranged around a central area featuring a yellow open-air theater and triangular plazas. The project, nicknamed the "Red Dinosaur" for its striking color and audacious form, deliberately complicates the skyline with passages, decks, elevators, balconies, terraces, and bridges that create multiple pedestrian routes and emphasize the interplay between housing and urban context. Conceived as a utopian micro-city inspired partly by Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation in Marseille—which Aymonino and Rossi sought to improve upon—the complex embodies what became known as "fragmentism," their vision of cities as intricate, turbulent textures. After initial occupation by homeless families, the complex was abandoned in 1974 and subsequently converted into a middle-class condominium.
Architect
- Built
- Type
- housing estate
- Place
- Milan, Italy
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