Una company-town dimenticata. La tutela del Quartiere Maddalena di Somma Lombardo (VA) - A disregarded company-town. The preservation of the so-called Quartiere Maddalena in Somma Lombardo (VA)

The town plan for Somma Lombardo, Varese, is arranging the disposal of the industrial settlements which lay along the Ticino River, whose valley is now a recognized nature park. It seems useful an investigation of the past so that if refurbished its complexity will be respected and brought into future. Maddalena, which is a suburb for Somma Lombardo, a town of about 17,000, inhabitants, seems an anonymous and unattractive hamlet, a cluster that is neither disordered nor dispersed but unsettled and confused. Two churches show the new beside the old. Many converted farmhouses prove that agriculture has almost disappeared. Some early twentieth century villas remind the eclipsed Belle Epoque. A decommissioned primary school proves the shrinking community. Blocks of townhouses reveal residents as commuters. The unpublished archival documents and on-site surveys here proposed will display an ignored company-town as a persistent and promising urban design.