ABSTRACT
Milan’s underground transportation network was planned as an alternative public transport system for the 19th-century tram-based surface transportation, where its stations were designed by Studio Albini in collaboration with Bob Noorda/Unimark. Today, therefore, the system is assumed to be an example of ‘Rationalism’ in Milan, and as well as Italy.
Regarding this, the Albinian way of design that is still effective in the Milan Metro has affected the individual and collective behavior of its users in addition to the architecture, planning, social and economic development of the city from the material to symbolic value.
This paper aims to examine the architectural identity of the Milan Metro and Franco Albini’s Rationalist approach to the interior design of the stations of the Red Line (Linea M1) along with Bob Noorda’s well-known graphic designs of the signage system which would later influence the underground transportation networks of New York, Sao Paolo, and Naples.
