Tech Stories: 150 years of Politecnico di Milano through science and technology stories

Many stories have been written throughout the life of the Politecnico di Milano. These are not merely stories about engineering, architecture and design, nor simply about technical discoveries or scientific innovations. These are stories about people whose work – and above all their passion for what they believe in – has marked the progress of humanity and changed the history of society. If today we take an airplane flight, or visit a museum, or have easy access to electric energy, we owe this to them as well.

It will be objects, then, that tell us a story: if we know how to listen to it, through their voices, we will learn about a Politecnico of which we have no knowledge or memory. These have been identified in accordance with itineraries, both physical and intellectual, which we are calling “Roads”, selected to correspond to some of the most significant protagonists involved with the Politecnico.

Installed in Egidio and Pio Gavazzi’s silk factory, the power central was utilized for lighting the spaces and powering the operation of the looms. it was inaugurated in 1895 in the presence of Umberto i and Margherita of Savoy, and continued operating until 1950. it consisted of a steam engine with two horizontal cylinders constructed by the Legnano workshop officine Franco Tosi, combined with a pair of alternators produced by Brown Boveri, a leading company in the electromechanical sector.

This single-cylinder diesel engine had a power output of 60 hp at 30 rpm. Dating from the 1920s, it was donated by the Politecnico di Milano to the Museum in 1970. it was long employed for didactic purposes in the industrial Mechanics Department laboratory, and Giuseppe Colombo also used it for his practical exercises. The reduced number of students in courses at that time allowed the professor to follow each pupil individually.

Giuseppe Colombo shaped generations of engineers, many of whom went on to found industries in widely varied production sectors, giving an economic boost to italy. Among these were Alberto Riva, who founded Riva, a company best known for its design and construction of hydraulic turbines, and Guido Ucelli, its director. Based on a centrifugal speed sensor, this regulator was patented in 1901.

He is known for his outstanding contribution to the evolution of flight during its pioneering epoch, and we are indebted to him for many key achievements relating to the conquest of the sky, as well as to scientific progress. His studies for the helicopter are significant, leading to the construction of an experimental helicopter with contra-rotating blades, the first machine heavier than air to succeed in rising from the ground. Also worth mentioning are the series of airships used for over 30 years in military and civil aviation, and the hydroplane, capable of flying over the water and forerunner to the modern hydrofoil.

Many aircraft designers in the early decades of the 20th century can ideally be considered pupils of Forlanini. Among these a prominent place belongs to Mario Castoldi, who graduated from the Politecnico in 1913, becoming technical director of Aeronautica Macchi, for which he designed several aircraft. The MC 20 V, a fast, maneuverable fighter plane, entered into service in 1943 and was a protagonist in many events in the Second World War.

After graduating at the age of just 21, Giulio Natta joined the Politecnico’s Istituto di Chimica Generale, then one of the most active research centers in Italy. Beginning in 1938 he served as Chair of Industrial Chemistry at the Politecnico di Milano for 35 years. In Milan he directed the Istituto di Chimica Industriale and carried out important research for the production of synthetic rubber, and in 1954 he succeeded in establishing a laboratory for polypropylene.

This object, dating from around 1950, comes from the laboratory used by Giulio Natta at the Politecnico di Milano. We could ideally conceive that the isotactic polypropylene for which Natta won the 1963 Nobel Prize in chemistry was created on it. Also on the workbench are anastatic copies of some autograph pages penned by Natta, and beside them is a spatial molecular model of isotactic polypropylene. Exhibited in the display case in front of the workbench are copies of the medal and diploma for the Nobel Prize.

The Montedison Collection consists of many objects made of technopolymer. The Rabolini Collection formed its original nucleus, which was collected and enlarged by Anna Rabolini between 1975 and 1982. it comprises 517 pieces dating between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century and provides an interesting testimony of the fruits of the collaboration between Natta and Montecatini.

Giovanni Battista Pirelli is a fundamental character in the rubber industry in Italy and, consequently, in all the numerous industrial sectors utilizing this material. In 1872, he founded the “G. B. Pirelli & C.” company for production of rubber articles. In a few years, in addition to tubes, belts, and rubber canvases, the company was producing carpets, waterproof fabrics and clothing and many items for haberdashery, typography, sanitary use, and toys.

In the 1880s, the Pirelli company began production of copper cables for underwater use, essential for the emergence of intercontinental telecommunications. Given the importance of this new industrial sector, Pirelli commissioned a cable-laying vessel and had it built expressly in England. With the Città di Milano, as it was christened, he became entirely autonomous in every phase of the cabling of a network, from production to installation. Thanks to the Città di Milano and to other similar ships launched subsequently, the Pirelli company laid thousands of kilometers of cable in both italian and foreign waters. These cables, predating Pirelli’s industrial production, represent an example of those that would later number among the company’s most important products.

The birth and development of tires is a key condition for the progress of road transport. This tire from 1915 represents the production example that made Pirelli famous, more than any other, in the eyes of the greater public. The creation of a tire occurs through the packaging of the compound that combines the rubber – natural, synthetic, or both – with other ingredients such as carbon black, used as “filler” to give greater mechanical strength, and a mixture of oils to increase the degree of workability. Thus was born rubberized fabric, which constitutes the resistant element of the tire.

Schiaparelli is considered the ideal initiator of the Politecnico’s great school of topography and geodesy: his appointment as professor of geodesy predates the founding of the University. He was also one of the proponents for the creation in Milan of a center of higher education having a scientific and practical character. Conditioned by the strong development of industry, Milanese astronomy needed to demonstrate its practical implications for productive activities in order to be able to appeal for funding available to sciences with industrial applications. The scientific industry could thus avail itself of the results of research conducted by institutions and, in turn, finance them.

This instrument came into use at the osservatorio Astronomico di Brera during the 1930s. Commissioned by then director Emilio Bianchi, it replaced the one utilized by Schiaparelli for his first studies on Mars, but for various reasons, it did not have the same scientific success. Already underpowered with respect to the standards of the times, it was primarily used for astrometric studies.

Fervent and passionate advocate for the spread of scientific enlightenment, Guido Ucelli is an example of the integration between scientific and entrepreneurial skills put to the use of science and technology. Thanks to his intellectual and technical contribution, as well as his financial support, two Roman ships were recovered from the bottom of Lake Nemi between 1928 and 1939. The two craft, exceptional in terms of size, technological importance, and archeological interest, would later be destroyed during the II WW.

The building that today houses the Museum was formerly the olivetan Monastery of San Vittore, and later the Villata barracks. After the war-induced destructions, it was selected in 1947 for the headquarters for the Museum upon the initiative of a group of engineers and architects of the Politecnico di Milano: Guido Ucelli, Francesco Mauro, Enrico Agostino Griffini, Piero Portaluppi, and Ferdinando Reggiori. it was inaugurated in 1953 with a major exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci. Guido Ucelli, who had long urged the scientific and political world to constitute an industrial museum, attentively followed the restoration works to the site and would chair the Museum with dedication for many years.

The undertaking to recover the Nemi ships, longed for since the Renaissance and returned into vogue in the late 19th century, saw the personal commitment of Guido Ucelli. he provided the hydraulic machinery utilized to empty Lake Nemi, and he provided careful technical monitoring with sensitivity to the archaeological value. The emptying of the lake and the coordination of the teams employed would even today be two complex undertakings. one can only imagine what it must have been like in the 1920s. The ships brought to light were archaeological finds internationally recognized for their importance. They were burned during the war, and the only things remaining today are the reconstructions visible at the Museo delle Navi Romane in Nemi and part of the bronze decorations at the Museo Nazionale Romano at Palazzo Massimo.

He was also among the scholars who realized the first Italian radar (G.U.F.O.), installed in 1941 on the battleship Vittorio Veneto. In 1952 he built the first microwave radio bridge between Turin and Milan for the television service, demonstrating the possibility of extending the network throughout Italy. Subsequently the Milan-Palermo bridge was realized, designed by Vecchiacchi and built after his death.

This device, developed by Vladimir Zworykin and patented in 1934, was utilized by Vecchiacchi in the Magneti Marelli laboratories for realization of the Milanese company’s first television camera in 1939. The shooting tube is made up of a glass ampoule under vacuum, which contains the hot-filament electronic “cannon” and a screen made from a “mosaic” of photosensitive cells.