ABSTRACT
Franco Albini's production of popular housing, designed exclusively in collaboration, was his most constant and prolific arena of professional activity. As such, even more than his acclaimed museums, this body of work changed throughout his career and provided evidence of his evolution as an architect who responded with ingenuity to Italy's volatile cultural context. Urban architecture in Italian cities of the nineteenth century more commonly included closed superblocks with isolated inner courtyards invisible from the street, where both the public avenue and the private court were defined by the building mass. The evolution of Albini's urban remedies followed his initial commissions for regime housing and was manifest in the formal derivation apparent in his collective residential projects for Milan and other cities. His built work matured in tandem with his developing political savvy and architectural experience. Albini joined with his Italian International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM) cohort of young designers to insist on better conditions for all citizens from both rural and urban populations.
