A guide to the city of Varese

Eugenio Guglielmi

A GUIDE TO THE CITY OF VARESE ITINERARIES OF EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

Photography by Davide Niglia

Realized by

Thanks to Archivio Storico del Comune di Varese Musei Civici di Varese Comando Provinciale Guardia di Finanza, Varese Famiglia Manusardi

ISBN 978-88-6242-881-1 First english edition November 2023 © LetteraVentidue Edizioni © Texts: Angela Baila, Elena Brusa Pasqué, Eugenio Guglielmi © Photos: Davide Niglia Scientific Committee: Angela Baila, Claudia Caramel, Laura Gianetti, Eugenio Guglielmi Translation: Heather Riddington Graphic design: Davide Niglia Cover: Raffaello Buccheri No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, even for internal or educational use. If any mistakes or omissions have been made, they will corrected in the forthcoming edition.

LetteraVentidue Edizioni Srl Via Luigi Spagna 50 P 96100 Siracusa, Italia

Index

6

Itineraries for knowledge

8

Modern Architecture in Varese amidst knowledge and conservation

Elena Brusa Pasqué

Angela Baila

10

Varese: An exploration of eclecticism and the ‘Novecento’ Eugenio Guglielmi

14

Public Buildings

58

Private Buildings

90

Architecture map

93

Bibliography

94

Name index

95

Architecture index

Itineraries for knowledge

Elena Brusa Pasqué

Describing the evolution of a city’s architecture involves drawing attention to its cultural development and beauty.

Architecture is able to depict a territory and its history through its buildings and the patrimony accumulated becomes, in this particular collection, a description of the architecture present in Varese during the first ten years of the last century, demonstrating the considerable influence that architecture has had on the economy of the city. This account leads us to look at architecture through new eyes and from a different point of view.

Varese became the provincial capital in 1927 and the architecture that accompanied this institutional role involved the construction of a large number of public buildings, imposing a ‘new’ city onto the existing old town, with the addition of representative buildings in strategic areas throughout the city.

Having become the provincial capital, Varese had to assume a different guise from that of the “Milanese Versailles”, which, thanks to its delightful villas set on its seven ‘hills’, had been its role during the two previous centuries. It needed a distinctive mark so that it would no longer be considered a holiday town, but a place with a decidedly different spirit and in this case the architecture offered a new vision. This came about from urban planning competitions and individual projects that transformed Varese into a capital city of an industrious and highly competent province similar, in fact, in the years between the two wars, to a type of ‘Milanese Manchester’ with the historic factories of Aermacchi and Bulgheroni or the Poretti Brewery, and the tanneries for the shoe leather sector that had made Varese famous for its footwear industry. The factories were in the city itself and the city assumed two very different roles: one, the delightful villas and the other the industrial workplace.

The Varese Architecture speaks the language of light, both the light that filters though the fronds of the century old trees in its parks to the light of creativity; a poetic metaphor between two different 6

A GUIDE TO THE CITY OF VARESE

worlds. A world of people who walk with heads bowed, almost at a run, so as not to waste time in a world that must demonstrate its strength and institutional importance in direct contrast to the beauty of nature and Varese’s outstanding parks.

Many architects left their mark on Varese at the beginning of the twentieth century and we will try to discover them through this collection made up of images and reflections, endeavouring to shed light on the creativity of the architects, who more than anyone else were able to influence the territory and knew how to project perfectly down to the very last detail. “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge” as affirmed by Stephen Hawking, and for this reason the “Varese Order of Architects” wants to remove the veil of illusion and offer its members both knowledge and experience. In the name of the Board I would like to thank Prof.

Arch. Eugenio Guglielmi, the Councillor Arch. Angela Baila and her “Landscape and Cultural Heritage commission” for the work undertaken and all the members of the Board that have given their backing to this cultural project.

Elena Brusa Pasqué

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Impero Cinema Theatre

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Its decentralized location, in relation to vthe area of the new city centre, ia So this building difficult to makes lfe place inrinthis context. However, in Antonio o S. viale spite of this, the designer manages to render a valid example of the international ‘Novecento’, particularly that of Germany’s official and commemorative buildings. Highly effective are the “blind openings” that punctuate the façade towards the square, cutting perpendicularly the entire surface, which is made up of square modules in lithium clear ceramic. Other deep openings, that via

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are smaller but no less suggestive mark the view from the other facades. piazza An audacious cantilevered canopy della via Repubblica illuminated by round skylights Giu lio B izzo surrounds the building drastically zer o dividing the upper floors from the base that is coated in dark stone slabs of Serpentine. This type of architecture can also be found in the Italian overseas colonies, especially in the “Imperio Cinema” in Asmara designed by Giuseppe Pettazzi (19072001), well-preserved even today and very similar to the example in Varese.

↓ View of the main entrance from the east side. → Details as seen from via Giuseppe Bernascone.

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PUBLIC BUILDINGS

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Palazzo Castiglioni

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In 1933 a national public tender was volumes, was to “frame” and give launched for the refurbishment of greater prominence to the public the new city centre. After one or two building in the background. The visual setbacks the project chosen was uniformity was accentuated by the that of Mario Loreti who had already arched porticos that “endowed the via collaborated with Marcello Piacentini square with a typical, traditional, local So lfe rin (1881-1960). o Palazzo Castiglioni was ntonio character”, together with the use of via S. A conceived as a lateral delimitation autarchic materials such as granite, Giu viale of lio Biz the new square that was also to house Travertine, Angera stone and Klinker zoz ero the civic tower, later constructed on bricks. the same side. Loreti, in his detailed A significant example of the so-called project report, describes the function “Roman School” that had thereby that the building should have had found a place even in the town of which, together with other similar Varese. via

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1937/39

↓ Prospective on Piazza Monte Grappa. → Details of the south prospect.

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A GUIDE TO THE CITY OF VARESE

piazza della Repubbl

PUBLIC BUILDINGS

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The Littoria Tower Arch. Mario Loreti

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The result of a public tender in 1933 order to accentuate this particular and won by Loreti, the Littoria Tower characteristic, the vertical element has now become a distinctive symbol was conceived as a monolithic block of Varese’s town centre. 54 metres devoid of an opening. At the base high, as a new visual pivot, the slender was an Arengo above which was a via structure bas-relief by the Varese sculptor, So plays homage to the lf ino medievalertower traditions in Italian tonio Angelo Frattini (1910-1975). Also in S. An ia G cities, as if to declare the regime’s the lower area, planning wasvmade viale iuli for oB izz continuity with the noblest of a votive chapel with a simple altar in oze ro national history. Loreti describes it as the centre and the stone walls were “majestic and austere, highly visible inscribed with the names of those on all sides, an element distinctive who had lost their lives in the 1915from the buildings around it”. In 1918 war. via

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1933

↓ View of the building from the southeast side. → View of the tower.

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A GUIDE TO THE CITY OF VARESE

piazza della Repubbl

PUBLIC BUILDINGS

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via

Bernascone’s House

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piazza Monte Grappa

Eng. Pezzani

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clung to its traditional standards and opposed true innovation. The massive parallelepiped that looms over the via Veneto intersection has been harmoniously interrupted piazza della

by Pezzani with a series of lightRepubblica via Giu coloured perpendicular scans lio Biz zozwith the Klinker red in contrast ero surfaces. A long terrace delimits the top floor and, together with the upper cornice, strengthens the perspective of the main facade towards the street. ro nd sa es Al via

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Alongside the public buildings, the centre of Varese conserves a series of constructions, commissioned by private clients that confront each other in a variety of contrasting styles ranging from the decorative Eclectic to the Lombard school of Neoclassicism dear to the hearts of the Milan “Club of Urban Planners”.

Palazzo Bernascone on the other hand reflects the “Novecento movement” which although considered a “modern” trend, still

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1938

↓ View of the building, southwest side. → Details of the building from via Vittorio Veneto.

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A GUIDE TO THE CITY OF VARESE

PRIVATE BUILDINGS

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the Milan buildings by a true master of the previous period, Ulisse Arata (1881-1962), particularly evident in Palazzo Berri Meregalli in 1910. Many of the corner solutions realised by Arata were re-elaborated even later, for example the balcony connecting the two wings of the building of the aforementioned Casa Sciarini. Arata, himself, had used this for the first time in Naples in the 1908 Palazzo Mannajolo, in the very middle of the Liberty era.

A GUIDE TO THE CITY OF VARESE

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↓ Corner view of via Walter Marcobi and via Giuseppe Bernascone. → Details of the façade on via Walter Marcobi. →→ View towards via Walter Marcobi.

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Eng. Edoardo Flumiani

At the end of the 1920s Edoardo Flumiani designed a number of buildings, including the Gymnasium in via XXV Aprile and the I.N.C.I.S. houses for state employees (National via So lfe Institute of housing for state rin o employees).

In 1933 the engineer also collaborated with the architect, Loreti, in the planning of the Palazzo delle Corporazioni (Guildhall) in Piazza Monte Grappa.

In Palazzo De Micheli, Flumiani echoes the eclectic spirit introduced into

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PRIVATE BUILDINGS

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Via Piave The advance of the Liberty style in the province of Varese took place at a time of great economic development that was to have important repercussions on the expansion of new cultural trends throughout Europe. In our territory the presence of this type of architecture is so accentuated in the various models and solutions as to be able to speak of a genuine “Varese Liberty style” which would continue and later overlap with Decò, as may be seen by Palazzo Soldati realised almost at the

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M end of the Twenties. agIn spite of the en ta intended fact that the building was for the middle classes there is no lacking in well-distributed urban decorations in the façades, in the use of materials such as the beautiful band of split granite at the base and the elegant, artisan wrought iron parapets. Also highly successful is the corner solution with the superimposed semi-cylindrical body forming a liaison between the two streets.

↓ View of the building from the northeast side. → Details of the façade on via delle Medaglie D’Oro.

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PRIVATE BUILDINGS

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Architecture Map 18

1. Casa del Balilla (via Copelli) 2. Casa del Mutilato (via dei Bersaglieri) 3. Teatro Cinema Impero (via Giuseppe Bernascone) 4. Collegio civico (via Pasubio) 5. Edificio scolastico (via Aquileia) 6. Ippodromo (via Albani) 7. Macello civico (via Tonale) 8. Ospedale psichiatrico (via Ottorino Rossi) 9. Palazzo Castiglioni (piazza Monte Grappa) 10. Torre Littoria (piazza Monte Grappa) 11. Palazzo delle Corporazioni (piazza Monte Grappa) 12. Palazzo delle Poste (viale Milano) 13. Palazzo di Giustizia (piazza Cacciatori delle Alpi) 14. Palazzo Littorio (piazza Libertà) 15. Palestra O.N.B. (viale XXV Aprile) 16. Sede I.N.F.A.I.L. (via Padre G.B. Aguggiari) 17. Sede I.N.F.P.S. (piazza Monte Grappa) 18. Parrocchia S. Antonio Di Padova (via Padre Samuele Marzorati) 19. Casa De Grandi (via Piave) 20. Casa Mascardi (piazza Monte Grappa) 21. Casa Mera Gorini (via Bernascone) 14 22. Casa Sciarini (corso Aldo Moro) 23. Casa Bernascone (via Vittorio Veneto) 24. Palazzo De Micheli (via Giuseppe Bernascone) 25. Palazzo Soldati (via Piave) 26. Palazzo Sommaruga (via Giuseppe Bernascone) 27. Palazzo Talamona (via Giuseppe Bernascone) 28. Palazzo Verga (piazza Monte Grappa) 29. Casa Antonetti (via Giulio Bizzozero) 30. Palazzo Assicurazioni R.A.S. (piazza monte Grappa) 31. Villa Manusardi (via Tasso) 32. Casa di civile abitazione (viale Sant'Antonio)

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A GUIDE TO THE CITY OF VARESE

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A. Comune di Varese e Giardini Estensi (via Luigi Sacco) B. Basilica di San Vittore Martire (piazza San Vittore) C. Campanile del Bernascone (piazza Battistero) D. Stazione FN (piazzale Trento) E. Stazione FS (piazzale Trieste)

ARCHITECTURE MAP

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“This guide collects the results of the research carried out in Varese on the complex architectural heritage dating from the 1920s to the 1940s. (…)

Starting from the 1930s, construction activity reached its peak with the realization of social projects. Post offices and telegraph buildings, railway stations, and various organizational structures such as Lictor Youth Houses, Italian Fascist Youth (GIL) buildings, corporation buildings, buildings for war veterans and disabled individuals, schools, seaside and riverside colonies were built. Within this context, architecture expresses the ideology in which the young generations of architects were formed and towards which they will tend”.

Eugenio Guglielmi

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