at the end this is what i think of Urban exploration:

1-     ue is free from any economic wine, so anybody can practice it.

2-     It has no space wine:everybody is free to visit what is good for them, in their own possibilities and interests.

3-     It creates new routes in the city, many ways to move inside the territory.

4-     The city changes constantly, so there are always new things and places to visit.

5-     Places and objects are recycled: exploring them we find new meanings.

6-     Ue searches for other ways to know the past, apart from academic knowledge.

7-     Ue is basic for a good architectural planning: architects must know the place their planning on.

8-     Ue is not only lived, but also told with pictures and stories. This helps to go through places and organise them in our minds, it helps us to have more consciousness.

9-     Ue makes us feel the gap between a finished past and an unfinished present: we can feel time, as sudden and fragile.

10-  Ue gives us an idea of the soul of things: the city starts living once somebody leaves traces behind him. Ue studies these traces.

what do you think about it?

Ex scenic laboratories of La Scala

A last glance on this industry, before i go searching for another destination. This place, althought is occupied by misterious characters, isn't so spooky like others could be. It's between residential buildings, and it seems like it protects them and it's protected by them. What i'm looking at now is different from what i've seen until now: a high façade, with no windows, but many doors and long corridors: it reminds me of a type of house that is not used anymore: the ones with long balconies, where to reach yur home you had to pass in front of the ones of others. I can only imagine the windows and the doors don't serve houses, but probably different levels of an empty building, high enough to build the scenes for the theater. A big block that tries totell us something about itself opening to the outside, letting the air of long years spent working get to the people walking along the sidewalks. The doors seem so small compared to the rest! With a jump i'd like to reach one of those doors and start a long trip, going up and down stairs, peeking in rooms, in the laboratories, in the wharehouse, hoping to find any trace of the past.

Ex-scenic laboratories of La Scala. Two interiors.

Some doors are open, protected only by a grating, to prevent anybody to go in. By the time the place is inhabitated, there must be open doors on the back. It’s of my interest to discover the state of the place, to ensure it can be visited and find out if inside there are any objects that recall what the place was. This place gives positive answers to all my requests. It’s possible to go in, you can peek in with no problems, and specially it’s full of stuff. The first thing i do is to look inside one of the openings protected by grating. It wouldn’t be anything special, cause it’s only a boiler room, but it’s in such perfect conditions that for a moment i feel moved. Until now i never had the chance to see an abandoned place with machineries inside still in good conditions. The room is dark, the walls are encrusted, but everything seem to resist, probably waiting for Ronconi to come back every year. The other room i manage to see is a deposit. It has many objects inside, as wooden boards, boxes, furniture and forgotten trash, like beer bottles and cans, trying to hide themselves in the corners. Thousands of images and thoughts pass through me, trying to wonder for which shows they were good before they were thrown there like junk. Maybe that’s what it is, only junk: they might not have been part of any show, but only leftovers of that nothing that’s there today. The wall in front of me seem to have accomodate many pictures of the strangest shapes, or it looks like a very old wall done with giant stones. They migh be only humidity stains left by objects that were there before. It was a magic world, magic that tries to tell us something today.

Water ways

Once i won my fears, noticing how less my presence has worried the clandestine that disappeared behind the scenes, i stop and observe one of the most often seen abandoned courtyards in Milan, because of the yearly show of Ronconi. There aren’t many weeds, and the gravel helps to give a tidy view to it all. Here and there there’s some trash keeping company to the visitor curious to know more about the place. Before i notice the building side, i admire the inside side of the wall, full of small treasures that give a romantic atmosphere, althought it’s a very sunny day. The first water way i encounter is a small sink, so simple, but it it seems very luxurious, as an antique piece. I don’t know why it looks so special, it seems like it come out of the wall, in the same materials and colour. It looks like while they were covering the wall they covered the metal sink with it. The drain pipe gets lost under the gravel, letting me imagine the maze of pipes that probably lay underneath me. The faucet is completely absent, but i wonder if there ever had been one. This might be the reason i at first thought of a fountain, cause that only hole in the wall is the only way the wate can come out. As every fountain the machanism that makes it work is hidden, so i have the feeling it could start at any time, althought it probably won’t. Stains of rust are ruining the small structure, and i would like to save it from the sure decay. The object is so static that disturbs the disorder of the coating of the wall. The simmetry doesn’t match with the sense of abandonment around. This place fascinates me cause, althought it’s an industry, i can see strange characters walking around, as if they left behind thousands of traces. It was a place of production, but of theater scenes, where fantasy and imagination are necessary to build something nice. Mime ghosts and good joiners drink from this small source. Few steps insider there are other fountains accompagning my visit. The next one i see is anther sink, a bit bigger, but less deep than the first one. This one seem even more son of the wall: the drain pipe disappears inside it, letting me imagine a whole series of pipes running around the perimeter, connecting all the sources. Dead climbing plants are a frame of this scene. The faucet seems like it has been pulled out with violence, leaving a big hole in the wall, with the full bricks raped, with might be the cause of the long crack. Underneath the sink two metal arms come out, as to support something that is not there anymore. A bed of dead leaves serves the rest of a sources not good anymore. The next one is for sre the most fascinating and romantic: a real fountain, with the basin and the statue in the middle. It’s condition makes it even more beautiful than when it was new, or at least this is my feeling, as a lover of ruins. The perimeter of the basin seems baroque, with curves giving an elegant touch. The statue in the middle is of a little boy: there are no wings to make me think of an angel. Time had no pity, taking away a leg and an arm, leaving the the steal parts free, the bones, i’d say, of a not such romantic cement flow. Humidity has covered the boy with a layer of bright green musk, as to greet the cascade of ivy around it. Ivy that has taken the place of water, giving us a much more florid show, if it wasn’t for the wind that brought inside the basin any kind of waste and dead leaves. But infront of this image i can pretend there’s no trash at all. After the fountain, between two trees, another sink, the same of the second one i’ve seen: same structure, the drain pipe disappears in the wall, the faucet has been pulled out with violence leaving a big hole. But there’s a small pipe, from which the water used to come out. The sink is covered by dead leaves and branches and pieces of concrete. The humidity goes down, staining the wall with yellows, blacks and reds, because of oxidation. The presence of all these sources really  makes me curious, sweetens the image of the abbandoned industry and it probably made gentle the job of the workers, which had to create beautiful images.

Via Baldinucci. Back in Bovisa.

I’ve found this place absolutely casually. From far away i’ve seen this building a bit higher than what was around it, grey, lonely and with broken windows. Althought what really hit me was a small house right next to it, completely ruined. First of all i try to reach this small building, also because untill now i’ve seen any kind of construction, beside an abandoned house. I pass a gate: on our right there’s a deposit, and right in front of me at 20 meters there’s another gate, with two big dogs that stare at us curious. Right next to them the owner appears, looking at us not too friendly. He opens the gate and lets the dogs free to come close to us. Alessandro loves dogs so he starts cuddling them right away, so i feel a bit safer too and i let them walk around me sniffing my clothes. The owner comes closer, he’s young, more or less of our age. He askes us suspiciously what we want and proud if we are afraid of the dogs, as if we have to. I ask him about the industry next to his property. It was where the scenaries for La Scala use to be produced, close for a long time, cause they moved in a better place. Now once a year there’s the exhibition of Ronconi, Infinities. This news make me appreciate even more the place behind the wall. Obviously, he tells us, clandestines live there now, many of them. So i ask him about the house inside his property, hoping that he’ll invite us in to see it. Instead he doesn’t seem to happy about my question, he says it’s not abandoned, but only in bad shape and nobody lives there, cause it’s to expencive to restore it. Althought it’s not abandoned i would have visited it anyway, but the guy doesn’t seem so friendly after all, as if we touched his dignity. Politely we say goodbye and go towards the main entrance of the abandoned area. The gate is slightly open, there’s no chain. Right there there’s a guy, i’d say from north-Africa, talking on a mobile phone. I guess right away that he must be one of the guys living there, cause he looks at us suspicious when he sees we stop right there. In the same moment an old man stops and tells us “here clandestines live, we can’t take it anymore!”, without us asking anything. I, who always need to justify whatever i do, explain that i’m concerned about te area for my final work in university. The man nods, still upset for what he told us. He goes away the same way he arrived. In the meantime the guy with the mobile phone pretends we’re not there, but with a guilty face, but specially with an investigative look, to assure his home is not in danger. We look inside the gate. Nothin’s moving. I ask Alessandro to stand next to the gate while i take some pictures. But the situation is really calm, so at the end we both enter. I go right, he goes left. In the meantime the guy with the phone enters too and disappears inside the building. No way i’ll go inside knowing there’s somebody in that won’t appreciate my presence. I have to admit he seemed to be ok and for a moment i thought of asking him to guide me inside for a tour, so i wouldn’t invade his space. But the courtyard is beautiful enough, without any need to risk my life.

Perspectives and symmetries

Since i’ve starter my final work i don’t get bored anymore when i have to wait. Anyone who takes the subway towards C.na Gobba always feels frustrated: if you have to go to Cologno, you can be sure enough that first will pass one for Gessate and two for Gobba. The same thing happens if you have to go to Gessate: you’ll probably see first the Cologno and the two Gobba pass by. It never happens that you go down in the cold, damp, dark gallery of the subway and your train arrives first. Most of the people to pretend they don’t have to wait so long, hop on the first train that arrives and get off at Crescenzago, where the directions split, and there they wait for the right train. There are many reasons why people do this: there is who wants to smoke a cigarette while waiting, being that it’s prohibited in the galleries, and Crescenzago is outside; there’s who suffers of claustrofobia and can’t wait to breathe fresh air, althought it comes from a very polluted street right behind; there’s who looks at the watch and realises that the sun is going down, so they might not want to go back to the surface and find everything dark: there’s nothing better after a hard working day than to go home with light still outside; there’s who sees that the train for Gobba is almost empty, so they go on so they can sit for at least few stops, being that the other two trains will be full for sure. Personally i catch the first train for all of these reasons. In February i attended my last exam in university. I was very happy. As soon as i got down in the gallery of the metro with all the noise and everything grey, i started to feel uneasy. So i caught the train for Gobba to reach as soon as possible the fresh light air, so i could start calling everybody to give the good news about my exam. The wagon was almost empty, and i started to feel empty too, trying to keep back my tears, which i couldn’t understand if they were of happiness or sadness. At the Udine stop i started to feel claustrofobia rising. I was sitting, alone, feeling my heart beet, agitated, when suddently a red warm light surrounded me. The world started smiling at me again, anxiety disappeared and my tears from melancholy became of joy. So I got off at Crescenzago, i turn on a cigarette, i’ve made a few calls, sent some messages, and still the train for Cologno wasn’t there. So i started looking around, walking back and forth. The sky was really clear, cars passed by fast in Palmanova and i looked at them as if they were music notes of a dodecaphonic score. The train arriving from the opposite direction seemed to me like a long pause, dark and dull, for then start slowly again untill it reached the fast rithm again. Being that i had to get off at Cologno nord, and the exit of that station is at the beginning of the train, i waited for it to come at the end of the platform, where the view dives in a horizon of tracks. The platform is so long that it becomes small and far the more i tried to reach the exit with my eyes. It was early afternoon so there weren’t so many people waiting with me. The platform, of a gold colour from the sun, was even more beautiful with nobody on it. I took few steps out of the roofing, to let the light embrace me completely. I was exactly in the middle. Behind me two men are chatting, and i observe lines running after each other, trying to reach the others.

Derganini

Once i get back to the main open space, where the workers have to pass to get to the only restored building, i feel reliefed and protected. On one side there’s an area completely fenced. It’s also surrounded by trees, that, althought naked because of the winter, try to hide what’s behind them. There are many low buildings, all the same, all abandoned. While i’m observing this view, one of the lady i’ve met at the beginning comes towards me. She stops for a chat and tells me how hard it is to work in such a place. Her voice is melancholy and desolate. She tells me it’s the old Derganini, a hospital for infective diseases (the official name is hospital Bassi) and the area is divided in many low buildings to keep the different diseases away from each other. It’s very fascinating for me to here this, cause i had no idea i could encounter such a piece of history during my wandering, so close to the center. It’s a wonderful testimony of the past, and looking around i can still feel life coming from it, i can see nurses and doctors, worries and sorrows. I tell the woman that it’s strange that they keep the gate wide open, althought there is one building restored. So i find out it is this way only once a week, on fridays, because not far from here there’s a place where thousands of islamics meet to pray, so they needed a place to park all the cars, so the traffic doesn’t stop. She tells me that if i wait a while i’ll see the area get full of cars. She’s not very happy about it. She doesn’t feel safe and before she goes away she tells me “Italy is falling apart”. Just to be sure I ask her if i can keep on going around the area, it’s to nice to be true. I start looking at the fenced area again. The façades have wide windows, almost completely walled, from the bottom till where the arched part starts. A red line follows the whole perimeter, embracing the arches. The coating has horizontal lines, as to delete completely the verticality of each building. Some of the glass in the arched parts is still there, but their destiny is signed if someone doesn’t restore the place fast. Nature is trying to take a hold on the place, growing also on the roofes. I get closer to the fence to see if it’s so impossible to get inside. What divides me from the area is a fence, a row of trees and another fence. I get closer to the restored building and i notice that beyond another fence there’s a small park, but probably still part of the area of the old hospital. At the moment there’s only an old man, playing with his grandchildren. Now i’m between an old building and the new one. I feel a bit astonished cause in few seconds i see the time going back and forth, from new to old.

Viale Jenner, the adrenaline

This area is to nice to even just think of going away without visiting it a bit more. I realize i’m alone and it’s not a good idea to go more inside, because i don’t knoe the place, i don’t knoe what kind of dangerous things i could encounter and i’ve no idea of what was here before. Visiting a place without knowing anything about it might be stimulating, but good explorers suggest to find information before, just to be sure to be well equipped against toxic substances or stuff like that. I have no intention to go inside by myself, so from the health point of view i should be safe enough. What really scares me is the possibility to find someone hiding behind corners. A lot of attention and caution should work good enough here. As usual i’m not dressed in the most proper way for a fast run, but i think that if i’m scared enough, there’s no coat that could be an obstacle to my escape. To tell the truth it has happened to me already in the past to have to run as fast as i could away from a maniac, and i was dressed definetly worse than today: miniskirt, heels, umbrella and purse. And he had no possibility to reach me, i was going so fast. Now only my coat could be in my way. I take a deep breath and then few steps towards the inner part of the area, away from the main gate. I keep an eye behind my shoulder, and i walk turning on my self, to be sure no one comes out from any hole. From this point of view i feel trained enough, because my paranoia about maniacs (and my mother always teased me!). it seems like there’s nobody around here, except some pijeons that suddently fly away making noise with dead leaves and branches. I have no intention to go more inside than what i need to. I’m between two buildings, behind the one i could see from the open space. At the floor level all the entrances and windows are perfectly walled. The building on my left has broken windows only on the first floor, which disturbs me, cause i can’t think of anyone throwing himself fram that hight just to assault me. I try to move quickly, i don’t stop too long in the same point, like an animal in the forest, allerted and ready to hide at the first hint of danger. The yellow coating of the building on my left is completely ruined letting me see the different layers and the bricks. Where the rain splashes out from the eaves the wall is darker, with musk and well growing climbing plants. The windows seem to have been walled recently, with many layers of cement: i can clearly see the shape of the moulds. The building on my right doesn’t have an entrance, and it is also very ruined by humidity. The ground is full of weeds, trash and dead leaves and there’s no sign of any kind of precedent pavement. The weeds aren’t anyway that high, as if someone was worried enough to leave the passage free. In the middle there’s an extinguisher: i wonder way it is always one of the last objects that desappear from abandoned places. The building on my right is kind of spookie on the corner at the end of it: a part of wall sticks out, with a cross on top of it and dead branches covering the whole thing, as i’d expect from a forgotten cemetary. It’s a pity that right underneath it there’s a lot of trash, as to try to undramatize the scene and take back to nowadays. Now i’m far enough from the gate and i can feel fear grow inside of me, but i do have to find ut what hides behind the corner. Always watching my back and with very light steps, trying not to step on dead leaves so i don’t break the silence that reigns on this place, i turn left. Luckly enough this side is short and it gives me the possibility to observe everything without exposing myself too much. There’s anther big open space of grass and trash here and there. The perimeter is given by a series of buildings of diffrent hights and in different state of damage. All the entrances are walled with cement. The windows on the first floor have probably been always false windows. The arched parts of the windows are the same of the building in the entrance: red bricks. The coating follows different tunes of yellow from one building to the other. All these have a façade on the street. In some points plants climb where they find space enough. I’m far, but i don’t feel i need to get closer, cause it doesn’t seem too different from where i am now. On the background i see i skyscraper, that reminds a lot of the “male” in Garibaldi, which makes me feel confused for few seconds, cause from where i am, that is not supposed to be there. It’s another building, very similar. I go back to the first open space, convinced that i risked enough for today. On my right i have the building on the open space. There’s no entrance here either and a cascade of dead branches try to hide a writing on the wall that says “keep clean” that time passing by is trying to brush away, and that few people seem to respect, seeing all the trash around the area.

Viale Jenner, the fortress

At the beginning i think of studying only the building i’ve baptized “the fortress”, because it’s in a good position, visible and safe, and so fascinating that it could easly represent the whole area, althought it is the one in worst conditions. The covering is almost completely crumbled, specially next to the pillars, that stick out a bit. The bricks can see the air, whitened by the traces left by the lime. The arched windows are in couples, as to form a sort of bifor (?), with the arched part very simple but visible with it’s red bricks as decoration, in opposition to the coating of the rest of the building. The inside part of the arches is the only trace left of what the windows used to look like, althought the glass is so dirty that i can’t be sure it is glass at all. The metal structure around the building it bacame part of the building itself, dividing the whole thing into modules. The climbing weeds are an element that makes everything seem more fantastic and misterious, beside disturbing the regular division of the metal structure. I get closer to one of the entrances, left free by the weeds, to study the interior conditions. The room is completely dark, except for a ray of light projected on a wall, coming from the façade on the street. The shape of this ray of light marks the presence of the climbing plants, that don’t let the windows project their fancy design. Humidity has taken place all over on the walls, revealing all the possible causes of degrading due to it. The coating is completely wet and all the salts have crystallize. The bricks seem to have pushed away all the layers, to find some breath. In the inside too there’s the metal structure to prevent the building from collapsing. The impression is that if no one restores this place it will crumble anyway to the ground. The metal poles are rusty. The floor is so full of stuff that i can hardly see it. It’s not rubbish, but wooden axis, pieces of bricks and concrete, lime and metal poles. The feeling is that the ceiling collapsed, which brings me to raise my head and look at it. The ceiling is another proof of how old this place is. It’s made of wood, tecnique that it’s not used anymore around here, because it deforms, it ruins and it burns so easly. The wooden ceiling have been used for ages in the past, because it works good with flexible strains. I’ve seen a similar ceiling before, when i had to survey an old cowshed for the restoration course. The different layers are visible, and i can see everything is in very bad conditions, which doesn’t make me want to go upstairs and proof the supporting capacity. I walk around the building from outside, to reach another entrance. To reach it i have to step on high weeds and what i see in front of me doesn’t invite to go inside. The floor is covered with junk, plastic bags full of stuff i don’t want to find out, glass bottles, cans and dead leaves. Althought i’m not a fussy person this really is disgusting, and i can’t imagine the quantity of germs flying in the air. The stairs are beautiful and it seems like it has been taken out from the rock, the humidity deformed so much. The walls are like the ones in the previous room. From here i can see the frame of a door, of rotten wood, but that probably used to be a nice decorative element. The handrail of the stair is so rusty that the reddish colour is infiltrating on the steps. The metal structure here is not on the perimeter anymore, but it holds the ceiling from the middle of the room, as to underline the precarious state.

Viale Jenner

From the street all i can see is a small building, two floors high, reduced in a ruin. In the past there probably was the aim to restore it, or at least to prevent it from collapse, ‘cause it still has the scaffolding around the whole perimeter. The ruin got  hold of that too, the weeds grew around the metal poles completely rusty. It really is a show to look at, cause it looks like a chopped tower of a long time ago, it is so ruined. The roof is not there anymore and windows and frames disappeared completely, enough to make me imagine that they have never been there. In few weeks the building will be completely hidden behind green shiny leaves. This is not a nice street, and i don’t feel so secure, althought it’s morning and the sun has never been so bright. This beautiful winter day makes the building even more spookie, cause it feels like being in another dimension, another time, very far from us. And i’m going to plunge myself inside the silence it sends out. A high wall doesn’t let me see what happens beyond it, but getting next to it i realize there’s a big gate wide open. What i see taking few steps inside, leaves me completely without breath: it’s a big area, in front of me an open space, surrounded by many small buildings. It reminds me of a labirynth, cause there’s no way to find the main building. I take a pictuce to my small fortress, walking in te middle of the weeds, but remaining next to the entrance, so that i can be seen from the street. In that moment three women arrive from inside the area, chatting cheerfully. They look at me with disattention, as somebody used to see strangers around. My curiosity is enough to brush away my shyness. I don’t ask them what that area has been in the past, but only if in theyr opinion there would be any problems if i went around taking pictures. There’s no problem as they concern, but they also tell me to be carefull, cause all the buildings are inhabitated by clandestines. So then i ask them what there is inside the area, why are they passing by. There’a a public medical section, specialized in infective diseases. They have been moved there not from a long time, not more than two years. Only one of the small buildings have been restored to give them a place to work. They are too enthusiastic telling me that twice a day they have to cross the entire abandoned area to reach their offices. During the summer time they can see men, with no shirt, stretching out after a good sleep. I imagine it’s not a good feeling, specially in the winter, when daytime is shorter and it gets dark early. This area is impressive enough during a bright day, i can’t imagine what it must be like when you can hear the cars passing by outside, but everything inside is silent and dead. I’m alone today, and the women tell me again to watch myself and not to go too much inside the buildings. I was already shivering for the cold, but now the fear is getting higher and i can feel the adrenaline growing.