Protection of monuments in Milan after the second World War and the “Liberazione”: Giovanni Rocco
regent commissioner of the Soprintendenza ai monumenti (1945-46)
Giovanni Rocco (1877-1951), was called in 1945 by the National Liberation Committee to replace
Gino Chierici at the head of the Soprintendenza ai Monumenti (Monuments Office) of Milan. Non-fascist, architect of academic formation, scholar of Pellegrino Tibaldi, he was just back from the ten-year
experience of the direction of Rassegna di architettura, which he founded in 1929. His term of office was
short (it was taken over by Guglielmo Pacchioni at the beginning of 1946), but full of initiatives, even
controversial: he was part of the Consultative Commission for the new town master plan, directed the first
works of reconstruction of the bombed Cenacolo, worked to expand the boundaries of State protection
of existing buildings.
The brief paper examines his work, in the wider context of Milan just after the war, a brief period
characterized by innovative actions, at times unrealistic, destined in the following years to be overtaken by
a reconstruction as pervasive as it was undisputed.
