A jewel of Italian rationalism is reopening in northern italy

As the first, precocious and incredibly mature work of a 23-year-old neo-graduate who grew up under Giuseppe Terragni and Alberto Sartoris’s teachings (and died at the age of just 31), the Asilo Infantile Giuseppe Garbagnati designed by Cesare Cattaneo with Luigi Origoni and built in 1937 in Asnago, Cermenate (Como), shares the same unfortunate fate with the neighbouring and coeval, but much more illustrious, Asilo Sant'Elia (designed by Terragni): born under the best architectural auspices, both buildings were deprived of their original function over time and after years of tampering, neglect and abandonment are now waiting to be reborn to new life. The kindergarten for 50 children in Asnago (while the one in Como was for 200) is set in a trapezoidal lot and is characterised by the aggregation of neat and rigorous volumes, functionally defined and distributed according to a simple and efficient “T” layout: a barycentric community space, which connects with the classrooms and the refectory and, in a decentralised position, with the nuns' accommodation (who managed the institute) and the nursery. The commitment to matching expressive values with functional ones, the enthusiastic use of light filtering through the large windows, the scrupulous and pioneering attention to environmental comfort (from the fixed and movable elements to ensure ventilation, to the alternatively transparent and opaque parts to guarantee thermal control), place the work in the frame of the purest Italian rationalism.

Unused for several post-war years, in 1986 the building changed its use, becoming a municipal pharmacy and the headquarters of the Red Cross. In 2003, restoration work was planned but did not result in a significant change. What is now reviving hope is the Cesare Cattaneo Onlus Association, chaired by the architect's son, who acquired the building in 2012 and is working hard to make it survive: if no longer as a kindergarten (due to another nearby and recent institute and to current pedagogical practises impracticable to the original context), then as a cultural destination. Renovation work is scheduled to start by 2025 and be completed in 2026. In the meantime the building, which has been secured and was already open to the public on the FAI Spring Weekend, in the coming weeks will host a cycle of four exhibitions on the history of the building and its creator: an opportunity to enjoy a manifesto of architectural culture and, for some, to rediscover the space experienced as a child, when perhaps this small but brilliant building appeared much larger than its actual size.