FAI spring days 2025: ten venues not to be missed

Built at the end of the 19th century, the building was later renovated with the addition of the belvedere by Michelucci in 1925 and was for a long time a private residence. In the 1990s, it was acquired by the Azienda del Turismo, which made it the largest congress complex in Florence (designed by Enzo Vannucci and Pierluigi Spadolini), since then only open to the public for events. Surrounded by a large garden with modern architectural elements and installations, and enriched in the interiors by Renaissance-style coffers, inlaid doors and polychrome stained-glass windows, the villa was re- furnished in the 1930s by Gio Ponti, Tommaso Buzzi and Giulio Rosso, who mixed custom-made modern furniture with antique and contemporary works of art, according to a museum-like layout. 

The kindergarten, designed by Terragni to meet the needs of the emerging working-class neighbourhood, is one of the undisputed masterpieces of Italian rationalist architecture. The complex comprises several single-storey buildings articulated in a U-shaped layout and facing a garden. Flowing interior spaces without partitions and large windows encourage interaction between the functional areas and the open-air courtyard as a natural continuation of play and educational activities. The furnishings, designed by Terragni (from the Lariana chair to the Sant'Elia armchair for the director), are also famous. The building has not been used for its original purpose for years and is in a state of neglect. Fai nominated it in its Places of the Heart campaign.

The Olivetti factory in Pozzuoli for calculators and typewriters is a masterpiece of industrial architecture in harmony with the landscape. The complex is articulated in several buildings with a rationalist layout in dialogue with the soft orographic contours of the site landscaped with lawns, gardens and ponds by Pietro Porcinai. Large windows create an uninterrupted visual and fruitive connection between the production areas and the landscape, while the inward slope of the roofs allows natural light to pervade the central axis of the workshops. For decades the factory has changed ownership and is now an office complex.

The church expresses an innovative and unusual design concept for a cult building of the time, having been conceived as the first of a series of replicable churches to be built in the suburbs using prefabricated industrial technology. The essential single hall volume is characterised by a rough reinforced concrete structure and perimeter walls of translucent ribbed glass panels. After years of degradation caused by deterioration of materials and fire, restoration work to bring the building back to its original appearance was completedby SBG architetti in 2014.

Immersed in the countryside, the Brion Memorial is a masterpiece of 20th-century architecture. Donated to Fai by Ennio and Donatella Brion, the memorial was commissioned in 1969 by their mother Onorina Brion Tomasin, in memory of her late husband, Giuseppe Brion, founder and owner of Brionvega. The centrepiece of the complex is the arcosolium, a lowered concrete arch-bridge covered on the inside with a shimmering mantle of glass and gold leaf tiles, which protects the sarcophagi of the husband and wife Giuseppe and Onorina Brion. The access to the memorial is a monumental entrance characterised by the dramatic opening in the form of two intertwined circles, symbolising conjugal love, on which the entire project is based. 

The church, designed by Ludovico Quaroni as a place-symbol of rebirth after the 1968 Belice earthquake, evokes the dualism between “earthly” and “heavenly” spheres through essential geometries: a parallelepiped, symbol of human rationality, surmounted by a gigantic white sphere that recalls the element of the dome through the history of different religions. The walls cladding, in contrast to the spherical dome, is characterised by the reinforced concrete frame completed by stone panels as a reminder of the ruins of the old town. 

The curved glass tower, headquarters of Pwc Italia, rises imposingly in the heart of the CityLife Business & Shopping District, next to the Generali Tower designed by Zaha Hadid and the Allianz Tower designed by Arata Isozaki. The Tower with 34 levels, including 28 habitable floors for a height of 175 metres, has been conceived with avant-garde solutions in the field of workplace design, combining space efficiency with attention to environmental sustainability and employees' well-being.

In the historical district of “Castellone”, among twisted lanes and stone houses, stands the “Cancello” complex, also known as the Roman theatre “Gliu Canciegl”. Built in the Augustan period in the 1st century B.C., the theatre had the cavea resting on the slope to offer a spectacular view of the sea. Over the centuries, the theatre underwent several destructions and transformations, including an initial conversion into living quarters for monks, until it became a housing complex. Currently, the building is one of the most representative examples of adaptive reuse of Roman archaeological sites.

Unique in its kind, this majestic centuries-old forest in the centre of Calabria has survived intact over time, with pines, larches and sycamore maples up to 45 metres tall and with trunks 2 metres wide, planted in the 17th century by the Baroni Mollo, owners of the nearby Casino. The forest was granted in concession in 2016 by the Sila National Park to FAI, which guarantees its opening to the public and is about to restore the ancient Casino Mollo, which will tell the story of this part of the Calabrian rural landscape.

In the heart of the Valley of the Temples, the Kolymbethra is a landscape immersed in centuries-old olive and citrus trees, a trace of the city of Akragas, founded by the Greeks in the 6th century BC. In 1999, the Region of Sicily entrusted the area in a free concession to the Fai, putting an end to the situation of abandonment into which it had fallen in recent decades and transforming it into one of the most important archaeological/naturalistic sites in the region and nationally. The vegetation and structural restoration carried out by FAI allows the temple of Hephaestus and some hypogea to be visited.