Box-holders, an empress’s decree and Piermarini’s plan, 1776 to 1778.

La Scala exists because another theatre burned. Milan’s court opera house, the Teatro Regio Ducale, was destroyed by fire after a carnival gala in February 1776; English Wikipedia dates the fire to 25 February, Italian Wikipedia to 26 February. English Wikipedia says a group of ninety wealthy Milanese box-holders wrote to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este, then governor of Milan, asking for a new theatre and a provisional one to use in the meantime; Italian Wikipedia names Giangiacomo Durini, count of Monza and superintendent of the Ducale, as their leader.

The architect was the neoclassicist Giuseppe Piermarini. English Wikipedia says his initial design was rejected by Count Firmian, the governor of Austrian Lombardy, and that a second plan was accepted in 1776 by Empress Maria Theresa. The theatre’s own history page says the cost of the new building was borne by the owners of the boxes, in exchange for the land on which the church stood and the renewed ownership of their boxes.

The name comes from that church. The new house was built on the site of Santa Maria della Scala, which was deconsecrated and demolished; Italian Wikipedia says demolition began on 5 August 1776 and that the church had been named after its founder, Regina della Scala, of the Scaligeri family of Verona. English Wikipedia says the auditorium was laid out with six tiers of boxes, above which sits the gallery known as the loggione. Italian Wikipedia says the painted decoration was by Giuseppe Levati and Giuseppe Reina, and that Domenico Riccardi painted the curtain with a scene of Parnassus.

Acoustic trials were held on 28 May 1778, and the theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 as the Nuovo Regio Ducale Teatro alla Scala, with the premiere of Antonio Salieri’s L’Europa riconosciuta to a libretto by Mattia Verazi. The building changed through the next century: a chandelier designed by the scenographer Alessandro Sanquirico was hung from the ceiling in 1823 and Francesco Hayez painted a new decoration for the vault in 1830. English Wikipedia says the oil lamps gave way to gas and then, in 1883, to electric light.

An orchestra pit, an autonomous body and a theatre rebuilt “as it was, where it was”.

The modern house took shape around 1900. Italian Wikipedia says the theatre reopened on 26 December 1898 with Wagner’s Die Meistersinger conducted by Arturo Toscanini, under a company formed by Duke Guido Visconti di Modrone with Toscanini as artistic director. In 1907 the stage was set back to make room for an orchestra pit; before then, the musicians played in front of the audience.

Ownership changed after 1918. Italian Wikipedia says that when Visconti di Modrone gave up the management at the end of 1918, the box-holders and the city renounced their property rights, and the Ente Autonomo Teatro alla Scala was created, with Angelo Scandiani as general manager. In 1928 the architect Giordani lined all the boxes in a uniform red silk damask, and in 1932 the engineer Luigi Lorenzo Secchi designed the mirrored staircases linking the foyer to the box levels.

The Second World War broke the auditorium. Italian Wikipedia says that during the night of 15 to 16 August 1943 an incendiary bomb hit the roof, bringing down the ceiling and destroying the upper tiers of boxes. The city chose to rebuild the theatre “as it was and where it was”, and the work was led by Secchi, who went on overseeing alterations to the building until 1982. The rebuilt hall reopened on 11 May 1946 with a concert conducted by Toscanini, in which the young soprano Renata Tebaldi sang.

Governance was rewritten twice more. A law of 1967 recognised La Scala as an “ente autonomo lirico” with public-law status, and from then on the mayor of Milan chaired its board, Italian Wikipedia says. The Filarmonica della Scala, drawn from the theatre’s orchestra to build a symphonic repertoire, was founded in 1982. The theatre then became the Fondazione Teatro alla Scala, a private-law, non-profit foundation; Italian Wikipedia says it was established by law in 1996 by the Italian state, the Lombardy region and the city of Milan, while the theatre’s own history page dates the conversion to 1997.

A season that opens on Saint Ambrose’s Day and a curtain carrying the city’s arms.

Many venues carry two names at once. One is the historic name, often long and formal, cut into stone or printed on a founding document; the other is the short form that audiences actually say, which tends to become the wordmark. Moving from the long name to the short one is a frequent identity decision for a theatre or arts centre, and it often happens quietly, when a new logo drops a word such as “centre” or “theatre” and the shorter name simply takes over in conversation, on tickets and in the press. Anniversaries test the arrangement. A twentieth, fortieth or fiftieth year usually brings a special lock-up, a commemorative season and a run of printed matter that sits beside the everyday mark for a year and then retires, and designers have to decide how far the anniversary version may bend the rules before it starts to look like a different organisation.

Much of a venue’s identity also leaves the building in a bag. Gift shops sell programmes, posters, books, tea towels and mugs, and a mark that works on a ticket has to survive embroidery, a pencil and a tote bag. The building itself often becomes the merchandise, as a drawing, a print or a model. Digital channels add another layer: recorded performances, cinema relays and streaming services frequently get a sub-brand of their own, so the house mark must lock up cleanly with a second name. Funders and partners bring their crests and credit lines too. A workable system sets out in advance where each of these marks sits, how large it is and what it may sit beside.

From the Arcimboldi in Bicocca back to the Piazza della Scala.

The next rebuilding began after the season opening of December 2001. English Wikipedia says the theatre closed after its run of Verdi’s Otello, and the company moved to the new Teatro degli Arcimboldi in the former Pirelli-Bicocca industrial area, which the theatre says opened on 19 January 2002. Milan’s city council approved a restoration project by the architects Mario Botta and Elisabetta Fabbri.

Botta’s visible additions sit behind the historic façades. Italian Wikipedia says he designed a new fly tower, the same height as the old one, and an elliptical tower for the artists’ dressing rooms, both clad in Botticino marble laid in bands, with LEDs set between the thinner courses to mark the tower at night; the stage machinery was designed by Franco Malgrande.

Inside, the work was a restoration. CBC Arts reported on 5 November 2004 that the company had moved back into its home weeks ahead of the traditional 7 December opening, after almost three years on the edge of the city. The broadcaster said Botta had kept the stage structure and the auditorium as they were while expanding backstage storage and service space, and that the team had made new silk tapestries, stripped away carpets and linoleum to uncover Venetian marble floors and terracotta tiles, and covered the stalls, gallery and boxes in red velvet to match the stage curtain. Each seat gained a screen showing the libretto in English, French or Italian, a system tested earlier at the Arcimboldi. The restored theatre reopened on 7 December 2004 with Salieri’s L’Europa riconosciuta, the opera of 1778, conducted by Muti.

The house keeps its own calendar and colours. The season opens each year on 7 December, the feast of Saint Ambrose, Milan’s patron saint. Italian Wikipedia says the boxes are again lined in red silk damask, in a shade between ruby and garnet, and that today’s crimson velvet curtain, embroidered in gold, carries the coat of arms of the city of Milan at the top.

For a design guide, La Scala shows an identity carried by a name and a room: a church’s title kept for a theatre since 1778, a crimson auditorium rebuilt in 1946, and marble towers added in 2004 without changing Piermarini’s front. Compare the Opéra national de Paris and Wiener Staatsoper guides. For this guide we use curtain crimson, Botticino cream, stucco gold and Piermarini stone with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep La Scala’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.