Anyone interested in Italian architecture will know the igloo houses in Milan between the Village of Journalists and the Maggiolina district in the North of the city, a few meters from the villa of the architect Luigi Figini – who in the sixties, managed to save from demolition the ones of them we can still admire. With about 400 thousand euros today you can also buy one – to be restored – on Via Lepanto.

The engineer Mario Cavallè, their author, was an expert designer of cinema halls, and to build them was inspired by a technique he had learned during his training in the United States, where the trend of circular houses had taken off. In Milan, however, they would be used to quickly accommodate the displaced people of World War II and initially had to be  only temporary accommodation.

The vaulted construction system, consisting of perforated bricks arranged in convergent lozenges (from which comes the nickname of “pumpkin houses”), allowed maximum freedom on the layout. Only two of the remaining eight houses have retained the original one.

Cover image courtesy of Immobili Ovunque.