Monte Stella Park

Town Hall: 8
Arrival: via Cimabue, via Isernia
Opening hours: free access

How to Get There:: MM1 QT8 | bus 40 | 68 | 69 | 78
Area: 311.000 sqm
Year of realization: 1960
Designer: Piero Bottoni

What to do at the park

  • 2 play areas
  • life paths
  • walk
  • stop and relax
  • run: running route
  • cycling, with mountain bike trails
  • bowling green
  • football and athletics field, tennis courts and bowling green in the nearby XXV Aprile Sports Centre
  • kiosk at the entrance to Piazza Santa Maria Nascente 
  • Santa Maria Nascente nursery school
  • visit the Garden of the Righteous

The park in brief 

Known by the name the Montagnetta di Milano, the Monte Stella park was created after the war by the architect Bottoni as part of an innovative and wide-ranging design.

The project was conceived in 1947, when in the city, with piles of rubble still in the streets, there was a need for new homes. The architect, Piero Bottoni, Extraordinary Commissioner of the Three-year, dedicated the first post-war Triennial to living. This was how the QT8, a synthesis of rationalism and organicism, conceived as a laboratory of modern architecture and urban planning. The original project included a large green area, with a lake in place of an old quarry, where in the meantime the rubble of the buildings bombed by the Allies had accumulated. Bottoni, given the transformation of the quarry into a mound of debris, modified the project of the lake to that of a 50-metre hill from which to look over the city. 

The mountain shrine was dedicated to his wife, the sculptor Stella Korcynska, who died in 1956, and became Monte Stella, the little mountain of Milan.

In 2003, the Garden of the Righteous was inaugurated, where every year cherry blossom trees are named after people who have put their lives at risk to save others, victims of racial persecution.

In this frame there is the Church of Santa Maria Nascente, by the architect Vico Magistretti, with a circular plan in contrast with the parallelepipeds designed by Bottoni for residential use; climbing to the top of Monte Stella, you can observe spruces, white birches, red oaks and then the silver maple, black pine and very tall poplars.

The flooring is made of asphalt, concrete and gravel and the park is periodically monitored by the GEV, the Volunteer Ecological Guards.
 

For those interested in learning about the shared care and maintenance interventions of the park, consult the Monte Stella project.

The events of the Montestella park are closely linked to those of the QT8 neighbourhood, which was designed as a new residential settlement in 1947 on the occasion of the VIII Triennale and which included tall buildings, a church, several schools, a covered municipal market and above all green spaces.

The plant overlooked an artificial hill, approximately 90 metres, essentially composed of materials from the rubble of buildings bombed during the war. The height was then reduced, due to stability problems, to around 50 metres.

The green area, completed in the early 60s, was used as an urban park and enriched with trees only in 1971 and between the 70s and 90s it was used for sporting events, party celebrations, trade fairs and shows.

Due to the conditions of the park and some landslides, a recovery intervention was begun at the end of the 90s with the insertion of new trees arranged on the hill on four levels.

The slow climb to the top is punctuated by dirt roads, paths and stairways.

In the park there is the Santa Maria Nascente nursery school designed by Arrigo Arrighetti.

In 2003, the "Garden of the Righteous of the World" was inaugurated where every year flowering cherry trees are named after personalities who have put their lives at risk to save human lives from racial persecution.

The church of Santa Maria Nascente was designed by Vico Magistretti.

Main tree species

  • silver maple (Acer saccharinum)
  • sycamore maple (Acerpseudoplatanus)
  • Norway maple (Acer platanoides)
  • hackberry (Celtis australis)
  • white birch (Betula pendula)
  • hornbeam (Carpinus betulus)
  • horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum)
  • negundo (Acer negundo)
  • elm (Ulmus spp)
  • Cypress poplar (Populus nigra 'Italica')
  • red oak (Quercus rubra)
  • black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia)
  • lime (Tilia spp)

Worth mentioning are large specimens of poplar and elm; in the Garden of the Righteous, a cherry tree and a memorial stone for each person remembered.

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Updated: 26/10/2022