Ferro ghisa e metalli nell’architettura del primo Novecento a Legnano: uno studio per la salvaguardia e la conservazione

The diffusion of iron and others metals, while belonging to an ancient tradition, between XIX and XX century experienced a growing scientiphic and tecnical innovation which has given rise to various applications with a progressively widespread use on a large scale, whose value is not generally recognized, especially in the case of structural, degraded or obsolete elements. The paper, based on an archival research in comparison with the reality, is aimed at analyzing the diffusion and the applications of metals at the beginning of XX century in Legnano, a little-known provincial town, which has lost much of its architectural heritage, in order to understand what has been produced with this material and to create an useful instrument of knowledge for designers, technicians and workers, to allow the recognition of its value and properly address interventions on it. Legnano, in fact, a former agricultural village which became an industrial town in the XX century, had a huge and sudden urban expansion characterized by the use of a combination of traditional and innovative techniques and materials. Here metal structures were primarily used by local industry in the industrial and utilitarian buildings, with a crescent use of these materials in all typologies of architecture, as constructive and decorative elements or street furniture, with additional applications, by making them protagonists of a tecnological season that must be protected and can not be forgotten.