GET YOUR HANDS OFF INNSE the graffiti mural screams from the crumbling wall of the old Innocenti Lambretta factory in Milan. I know many of you Lambrettisti are only interested in the scooter division but i am fascinated by all things Innocenti. A few years ago when INNSE (INNocenti Sant'Eustacchio, the heavy engineering division) was threatened with closure unions and workers staged a picket which turned into a riot at the site. This huge piece is all that remains of it now. Innse was sold to the Camozzi Group and last time I was there (2012) was still going strong, using many of the old machines still emblazoned with the Innocenti logo.

A close up of the entrance gate to the building in the post below, part of the old Lambretta factory in the Lambrate area of Milano. Being on Via Rubattino the building is becoming more and more vandalised each year that I visit. This building and the Centro Studi just up the road are still perfectly usable and one would make a great Museum as a tribute to the mighty Innocenti factory that stood on the site.

Of all the original buildings still standing on the old Innocenti factory site in the Lambrate area of Milan, this one is my favourite. Hard to get into shot because of it's size this would have been the main entrance to the site and main office areas for many years (until bigger offices were built in front of the huge production line buildings). The Centro Studi may be more important and futuristic but this much earlier building must have made a big bold statement when it was built for Innocenti. You can see some of the apartment buildings that now litter the former Lambretta factory site in the right of shot.

A graphic illustration of how the economic crisis in Europe has affected development of the old Innocenti Lambretta factory in the Lambrate area of Milan. On the left is a shot I took in November 2011 soon after demolition crews had pulled down two of the huge buildings where Innocenti cars were built (and where Maserati BiTurbos were assembled). On the right is the same area 12 months later, November 2012. Apparently apartment towers are supposed to be rising from the ruins here but apart from the security guard at the gatehouse there was no activity and no sign that much had gone on in the last year. (as usual click on the photo to enlarge).

New gates block the entrance to the Centro Studi at the old Innocenti Lambretta factory in the Lambrate area of Milano. Apart from this not much has changed in the year since I was last here. The economic crisis seems to have put paid to more development on the old site.

Back to that same old place, sweet home Milano! Back in Milan for EICMA 2012, now to find a spare few hours to see what has happened at the old Innocenti Lambretta factory in the Lambrate area of this fine old city in the last 12 months.

For our Italian readers, of which there are quite a few. This document from http://ordinearchitetti.mi.it/index.php/page,Milanochecambia.AreaCronologia/aree_id,33 goes some way to expaining the strange goings on at the old Innocenti Lambretta factory in the Lambrate area of Milan. It looks like the long promised real estate development fell foul of the GFC and that is why Innse suddenly re-appeared at the site last year under the stewardship of Camozzi Group. The owners of the development company Rubbatino 87 ran out of money and either sold or leased the old Innse building back to Innse. There is also another park planned for the site as part of the "Metrobosco" or metropolitan bushland park that is supposed to ring the city. It will be called Parco Lambretta if it ever gets done. Finally some recognition of the history of the site.