Milan, Italy

What are small spaces to treat with kindness?

At times all we need are brief glimpses, a flicker of light in the fog, cracks in an incongruous landscape, an overheard conversation of two strangers meeting in one of these strange places to make them real, make them come alive.

The city is rife with folds. Little spaces, in plain sight, that exist as if they were hidden from view. Forgotten and unused, they languish, unloved, like houseplants left to die from neglect. The alienation of modern man has been the well-tread subject of modern art and literature, but what about space. The way we build and use cities is as revealing of what we humans are now as anything else. When we build cities with poor public space, and populate them with these forgotten folds, we create another alienating urban tableau straight from an Edward Hopper painting. But we can refound them, map them back into the city, make them useful, cultivate them, make them known, treat them with kindness to rehabilitate them back to health.

Gruppo A12 , a collective that works at the edges of architecture, urbanism, and art, have taken to mapping these spaces in Milan, finding them, and taking them out of their abandonment. They call them “Piccoli spazi da trattare con gentilezza" (trans: Small places to treat with kindness). It takes very little to pull these spaces out of their unlivable state and make them useful. First they find, recognize, and identify these foundlings, mapping these small spaces all over the city. And after they’ve been identified, they (and also encourage others) to remake them through little acts and gestures, small events to "improve their wordless qualities."

Mission Report

Small spaces to treat with kindness. Small spaces that could be an important resource for the whole city. The project of Gruppo A12 started from Piazza Cadore: their studio is very close to this place, and they started to think about these small and potentially useful places. Places that could be really nice and welcoming if only someone would care about them. Anyone can join this project, anyone who has in mind a small place in the city that needs help and kindness.
They started to discover all of these places, and they draw us a map to them. We found their map at the Triennale of Milan, in the Bovisa district. Every spot was linked to an article which gave all the information about it: address, photos, and a small advice to underline its qualities.
Unfortunately, when we met Andrea we didn’t know anything about the project or places chosen. First, he explained us the meaning of their installation, and then he suggested us some places we could discover.
We went together to the first place, a small area close to Via Mac Mahon, where you could see railways from one side… we‘ve were impressed, realizing that this space could be much more useful and alive. A small café decided to put its tables near the net through which you could see the railways… a funny pic ;-) We want to highlight this moment on the video, and also the degradation of this place, because probably nobody cares about it. Then Andrea carried us to the next urban place to discover by ourselves: Piazza Cadore.
We chose this area to understand better how the project was born. In fact, as soon as we arrived, we were affected by the unlivable state of it. It’s a small place in a area full of restaurants and bars, and it sounds impossible that nobody thought to make it useful for everyone, putting there some flowers or winter gardens. Now the area is really really desolate…and in hetrain, it doesn’t look any better… There are just some park benches and a small fountain…a lot of trash, some advertising and play-bills.
Lorenzo Perassi, Lucia Emmanueli