Dino Buzzati (1906–1972), writer and reporter, enjoyed a long and fruitful partnership with the Milan Fair (from the Forties to the Seventies), as evidenced by the numerous articles, reports, and stories he wrote for the newspaper Corriere della Sera and the Board’s house organ.
Many are the memorable pieces he penned:
Those 18 Nights, 1949; Ambushes at the Fair on Serious People, 1962; An Incompetent Finds Consolation at the Fair, 1962; The Sleepless Night of April 11th, 1964; Among the Highlights, There’s Even Spring, 1965; An Extraordinary Egg, 1968; and The Great Businessman, 1970.
His words guided many a reader and visitor in the discovery of an event of central importance for the city and its people ever since its creation, amid the highlights and shadows cast by the developments, turning points, and major transformations that unfolded over the decades.
Changes that the fair both showcased and anticipated.
Of the many pieces penned by Buzzati, the one that perhaps most poetically describes the symbiotic bond between Milan and its fair, masterfully capturing the sense of identity it brought, was an article that appeared in the Corriere della Sera on April 14th, 1968.
And what better way to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the great writer’s passing than to retrace some of its key passages.
Stand BFB Italiana alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1968 (14/04/1968 - 25/04/1968) by Non identificatoFondazione Fiera Milano
The fair in Dino Buzzati’s words
The fair is a breath of air for Milan (…). Twelve days to stock up on oxygen, three hundred and fifty three days to consume it in work.
The fair is Christmas for Milan, its true festive season. Everything is left as though delightfully put on hold, even annoyances, sorrows, debts, and deadlines.
Sure, I’ll see you after the fair; of course, we’ll talk after the fair; for now let’s wait till the fair is over; yes, Mr … is at the fair; I think our engineer is at the fair; the chairman must be at the fair.
Visitatori alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1968 (14/04/1968 - 25/04/1968) by Non identificatoFondazione Fiera Milano
"The fair is a fever for Milan"
That can have quite an effect on some people, who might even have an allergic reaction to it or panic over it, and so they pack their bags and go away, only to return once the fever is gone.
"The Milanese might deny it, yet they feel a perverse satisfaction in seeing the city congested and delirious, the hotels packed full, queues outside restaurants, only standing room in cinemas, and all those automobiles with rare and unintelligible number plates, all those cars that cause traffic jams and asthma at traffic lights...
...The well-mannered even acquire a taste for it—coming home from the office normally takes me ten or twelve minutes, but today it took me an hour and half, good Lord! Now that’s what I call a metropolis.
Dino Buzzati
Interno del padiglione Eni alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1968 Interno del padiglione Eni alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1968 (14/04/1968 - 25/04/1968) by Non identificatoFondazione Fiera Milano
How can we forget the notary Ernesto Montironi...
...the fictional character invented and narrated by Dino Buzzati in the story Those 18 Nights, written for the Fair Board’s house organ to describe Milan’s kaleidoscopic transformation for the fair in 1949, twenty year earlier...
... but with the same dizzying sense of buzzing energy that brought Milan’s days and nights to life with the hustle and bustle of people and cars.
From which Mr Montironi seeks to escape in vain, finding refuge in his lonely country house, only to yearn for the fuss and excitement he has left behind:
“There they are, the lights of the fair. He recognizes them. Finally, the austere notary, if only with his eyes, wanders the avenues, enjoying the phantasmagoria of the exhibitions and stopping to read the spectacular signs, lingering a little too long to eye the cashier of an open-air public house. Curious, now that he sees it all from afar, things seem different to him. ...
... Why of course, good Lord, it is all still Milan, no less than the Tre Vie or the four decrepit Big Men are. Up close, the fair and Via Brisa have one and the same face, only one is all dusty and wrinkly, while the other is youthful—violent and exuberant, like all true youth", Dino Buzzati.
The fair is the temperature, but also the pulse measuring the health of Milan and Italy. Long before the official economy voices its rumours and speculations, the fair can tell you whether fine weather or storms are to come, whether business will boom or bills will be protested.
Interno del Bias Convegno-Mostra dell'Automazione e Strumentazione alla Fiera di Milano nel 1968 Interno del Bias Convegno-Mostra dell'Automazione e Strumentazione alla Fiera di Milano nel 1968 (20/11/1968 - 26/11/1968) by Non identificatoFondazione Fiera Milano
"The fair is Milan’s tomorrow"
At the fair people find what will be built, people talk about what will be manufactured, people discuss what will be sold, bought, exported, and imported.
The fair is Milan’s port and in a certain sense the biggest port of Italy. At the fair this year, sixty-five nations have come with their flags, including, for the first time, Algeria, Ecuador, El Salvador, Gabon, Honduras, Indonesia, Nicaragua, and the Central African Republic.
Those are the official delegations. But the exhibitors come from as many as ninety different countries.
Torre Breda a Milano (1960 - 1969) by PublifotoFondazione Fiera Milano
"The fair is a holiday for Milan"
Although people stress more, run about more, fret more, phone around more, and work more, there is the precise sensation that these are no ordinary days, but a sort of paradoxical holiday that puts the daily grind on hold and unleashes an air of liberation, spreading good cheer.
"The fair is the genius of Milan"
Here, for twelve days the fair brings together the intelligence, knowledge, and will power that will invent fantastic new synthetic fibres, new contraptions for space travel ...
... new machines for building cities, new devices for milking whales, and even new two-phase rotating toothbrushes, new self-moving dolls that recite Garcia Lorca, new waterproof electric razors, new all-purpose roof racks for cars (…).
"The fair itself, however, is Milan’s standard, waving so clearly and highly in the wind that it has come to be known and esteemed even in the most far-away and fabulous places where, without the fair, Milan’s name would never even been uttered, such as in Cameroon, Costa Rica, Gabon, Ghana, Sudan, Zambia, Ceylon, Madagascar, and Nigeria", Dino Buzzati.
Interno del Bias Convegno-Mostra dell'Automazione e Strumentazione alla Fiera di Milano nel 1968 (20/11/1968 - 26/11/1968) by Non identificatoFondazione Fiera Milano
"The fair is the serious face of Milan"
If once upon a time the fair let itself go a bit to become something of a village fête, featuring families camped out, greaseproof paper and orange rinds, kids running wild in search of leaflets ...
the howling of loudspeakers, and drunken songs floating in the air, for some years now the fair has fallen back into line, with no more shouting, no more squawking, no more dribbling, no more pigging out. (…)
"It's increasingly less about show business...
... and more about substance. (…) the fair no longer shows traces of quackish sales pitches and Luna park fun and has become, perhaps to the disappointment of a few time-wasters, “the rigorous expression of organizational technicality at the service of economic interests”.
Which is why it is increasingly treated with consideration and respect abroad and why arrivals at Central station and at airports increasingly consist of important people...
...who want to get down to business, instead of spending the time of their stay on pleasant chit-chat, dinners, and drinks.
La darsena di Milano (1960 - 1969) by Novi, AngeloFondazione Fiera Milano
"And why not, the fair is also Milan’s poetic streak"
The truly powerful and original pathos of Milan—which often has the courage to admit it is one of the ugliest cities in the world—is shifting out to the industrial suburbs, to the steel and glass neighbourhoods ...
...to the gigantic car parks and motorway junctions, to the phantasmagorical refineries stinking up the globe, to the iron cathedrals steaming out bleak vapours.
All that ugliness, so bare and utilitarian, that unadorned, but forthright face, that haste to get things done, to make money, to get somewhere, that stressfulness, even, that many criticize, is the same as at the fair, ...
...which certainly lays no claim to being beautiful, stylish, artistic, or romantic, but which so aptly expresses the labours, the hopes, and the illusions of a world that so obstinately believes in work.
Inaugurazione di Expo CT alla Fiera di Milano del 1968 Inaugurazione di Expo CT alla Fiera di Milano del 1968 (12/10/1968) by PublifotoFondazione Fiera Milano
"This year, finally, the fair is Milan’s Easter egg"
An egg that will hatch on its own at nine o’clock in the morning without fanfare or ceremony (the authorities will be coming two days later, led by the minister Andreotti), marked only by the raising of the flag to the top of the great big flagpole.
In no time the crowds will rush to come and see what is inside. And any self-respecting Easter egg always harbours a surprise.
In this immense egg, thousands and thousands of surprises, they say, await.
(Dino Buzzati, Corriere della Sera, April 14th, 1968)
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