Description
Milan's Stazione Centrale is not just the city's main railway station: it is a monument you enter to catch a train and end up staring at the ceiling. Opened in 1931, it blends Liberty, Art Deco and the monumentality of the Fascist era.
Outside, the facade in Aurisina stone, about 200 meters wide on Piazza Duca d'Aosta, is marked by great openings and crowned by sculptural groups. Behind it runs the Galleria delle Carrozze, built to let carriages in under cover; on its terrace stand the two winged horses by Armando Violi, allegories of progress.
Inside, the main concourse and the other great halls are a catalog of decoration: friezes, panels with the signs of the zodiac, statues and lions' heads. On the walls of a mezzanine you can also see maps of Italian cities painted by Marcello Nizzoli.
The real showstopper is at platform level: the iron-and-glass shed, 341 meters long, made of five vaults. The central one, designed by the engineer Alberto Fava, spans 72 meters and is more than 33 high.
At the east end is the Royal Pavilion, the king's private waiting room, with colored marbles, a double-flight staircase and a ceramic triptych by Basilio Cascella. It rarely opens, for exhibitions and events.
Before the trains, AC Milan played here. In 1906 the first stone was laid on the grounds of the Trotter, the field where the rossoneri played their home games. The 1912 competition was won by Ulisse Stacchini, but the war stopped everything, and the plaster models sat in the corridors for years.
When work resumed, the project had grown ever more grandiose. Mussolini wanted to inaugurate it in person, but Cardinal Schuster, in protest against the persecution of Catholic Action, sent only his vicar, and the Duce in turn delegated a minister.
Behind all that magnificence there is also a bit of trickery: marble on the lower part of the walls, decorative concrete higher up, many ornaments in plaster.
Beneath the tracks, however, lies a dark page. From platform 21 of the freight sheds, at street level, between December 1943 and May 1944 the trains that deported Jews to Auschwitz departed. The Shoah Memorial, opened in 2013, stands there.
Don't miss
• The central vault over the tracks.
• The Galleria delle Carrozze.
• The winged horses.
• The panels with the signs of the zodiac.
• The Shoah Memorial.
Did you know?
• In the bathroom of the Royal Hall there was a secret exit behind a mirror, to get the king to safety.
• A plaque recalls that Saint Frances Cabrini left from these tracks many times, but she died fourteen years before the station opened.
• In the 1950s there was a plan to attach a skyscraper to the facade: the project won a competition, but nothing came of it.
Outside, the facade in Aurisina stone, about 200 meters wide on Piazza Duca d'Aosta, is marked by great openings and crowned by sculptural groups. Behind it runs the Galleria delle Carrozze, built to let carriages in under cover; on its terrace stand the two winged horses by Armando Violi, allegories of progress.
Inside, the main concourse and the other great halls are a catalog of decoration: friezes, panels with the signs of the zodiac, statues and lions' heads. On the walls of a mezzanine you can also see maps of Italian cities painted by Marcello Nizzoli.
The real showstopper is at platform level: the iron-and-glass shed, 341 meters long, made of five vaults. The central one, designed by the engineer Alberto Fava, spans 72 meters and is more than 33 high.
At the east end is the Royal Pavilion, the king's private waiting room, with colored marbles, a double-flight staircase and a ceramic triptych by Basilio Cascella. It rarely opens, for exhibitions and events.
Before the trains, AC Milan played here. In 1906 the first stone was laid on the grounds of the Trotter, the field where the rossoneri played their home games. The 1912 competition was won by Ulisse Stacchini, but the war stopped everything, and the plaster models sat in the corridors for years.
When work resumed, the project had grown ever more grandiose. Mussolini wanted to inaugurate it in person, but Cardinal Schuster, in protest against the persecution of Catholic Action, sent only his vicar, and the Duce in turn delegated a minister.
Behind all that magnificence there is also a bit of trickery: marble on the lower part of the walls, decorative concrete higher up, many ornaments in plaster.
Beneath the tracks, however, lies a dark page. From platform 21 of the freight sheds, at street level, between December 1943 and May 1944 the trains that deported Jews to Auschwitz departed. The Shoah Memorial, opened in 2013, stands there.
Don't miss
• The central vault over the tracks.
• The Galleria delle Carrozze.
• The winged horses.
• The panels with the signs of the zodiac.
• The Shoah Memorial.
Did you know?
• In the bathroom of the Royal Hall there was a secret exit behind a mirror, to get the king to safety.
• A plaque recalls that Saint Frances Cabrini left from these tracks many times, but she died fourteen years before the station opened.
• In the 1950s there was a plan to attach a skyscraper to the facade: the project won a competition, but nothing came of it.