Gambardellarchitetti completes the restoration of the former Casa del Fascio in Lissone

The project by the Neapolitan office succeeds in guiding the building towards a new, convincing configuration, starting from a curious and critical reading of its troubled history.

Giuseppe Terragni, Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 1938-1940. Period drawings

Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy. Historical photo

The Casa del Fascio in Lissone before the restoration by Gambardellarchitetti

Gambardellarchitetti, Restoration and adaptation of the former Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 2021. Sketch © Cherubino Gambardella

Gambardellarchitetti, Restoration and adaptation of the former Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 2021. Drawings before and after restoration. © Gambardellarchitetti

Gambardellarchitetti, Restoration and adaptation of the former Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 2021. Axonometric drawings and technical details. © Gambardellarchitetti

Gambardellarchitetti, Restoration and adaptation of the former Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 2021. Photo © Andrea Martiradonna

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Alessandro Benetti
22 August 2021
Lissone, Italy
Gambardellarchitetti
public building
2021

This project appeared originally on Domus 1059, July-August 2021 The completion of the restoration and adaptation of the former Casa del Fascio in Lissone by Gambardellarchitetti is good news indeed. It is so because the public administration of a small Italian town – the Municipality of Lissone owns the building since 1968 – found resources and showed interest in preserving a valuable episode of the Italian architectural Modern, realized between 1938 and 1940 by Giuseppe Terragni and Antonio Carminati. It is good news also because the intervention was commissioned to such a sensitive and cultured designer as Cherubino Gambardella – which was anything but obvious. Gambardella, with Simona Ottieri and Dirk Cherchi, the director of the restoration of the façades on behalf of the Municipality, succeeded in guiding the building towards a new, convincing configuration, starting from a curious and critical reading of its troubled history. A strictly philological restoration wouldn’t be suitable for the Casa del Fascio, whose complex vicissitudes include its only partial completion and several intrusive adaptations – such as the one carried out in the 1970s by Piero Ranzani and Lorenzo Forges Davanzati. Rather, its conditions suggested the definition of a “possible” stratigraphy, re-discovered and continued by contemporary transformations and additions.

Gambardellarchitetti, Restoration and adaptation of the former Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 2021. Photo © Andrea Martiradonna

For the interiors, Gambardella correctly focuses uniquely on making them compliant with public buildings regulations, in order to stress the Casa del Fascio’s collective program, as a space for events and associations. The intervention on the main and rear façades, on the other hand, becomes an opportunity to claim the possible coexistence of different approaches within the same restoration project: the elevation on Piazza Libertà is preserved in its original features, also through the accurate restoration of the long roller shutter; on the rear front, instead, the long-lost sequence of oblique fins is reintroduced, as evidence of the distinctive interpretation of Modernism endorsed by Terragni. It is precisely on this elevation that takes place a successful encounter between Terragni’s anti-abstract exuberance and Gambardella’s anti-minimalist taste. The Neapolitan architect, the author of countless brightly-colored and highly expressive works, shows here his ability to adopt a much softer, virtually hushed style, allowing an active an re-active confrontation with the Italian master.

Gambardellarchitetti, Restoration and adaptation of the former Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 2021. Photo © Andrea Martiradonna

Restoration and adaptation of the former Casa del Fascio
public building
Lissone, Italy
Gambardellarchitetti
Cherubino Gambardella
Simona Ottieri with Luigi Arcopinto, Francesca Filosa, Alessandro Marotti Sciarra, Antonella Mollo
Maria Concetta Perazzo
Attilio Terragni (Fondazione Terragni)
Studio restauri Formica, Teicos UE
Municipality of Lissone
2021

Giuseppe Terragni, Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 1938-1940. Period drawings

Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy. Historical photo

The Casa del Fascio in Lissone before the restoration by Gambardellarchitetti

Gambardellarchitetti, Restoration and adaptation of the former Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 2021. Sketch © Cherubino Gambardella

Gambardellarchitetti, Restoration and adaptation of the former Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 2021. Drawings before and after restoration. © Gambardellarchitetti

Gambardellarchitetti, Restoration and adaptation of the former Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 2021. Axonometric drawings and technical details. © Gambardellarchitetti

Gambardellarchitetti, Restoration and adaptation of the former Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 2021. Photo © Andrea Martiradonna

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Gambardellarchitetti completes the restoration of the former Casa del Fascio in Lissone

The project by the Neapolitan office succeeds in guiding the building towards a new, convincing configuration, starting from a curious and critical reading of its troubled history.

View Article details

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Gambardellarchitetti completes the restoration of the former Casa del Fascio in Lissone

The project by the Neapolitan office succeeds in guiding the building towards a new, convincing configuration, starting from a curious and critical reading of its troubled history.

View Article details

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