RATIONALISM IN COMO

Rationalism in Como, founded in Brianza

The area where AB Italia is based, Cantù, has always been home to furniture-making culture and is located within the Como area and its lake, an area linked not only to the history of design or to the presence of a certain “high society”, to extraordinary film locations or to international finance and economy summits, but also to important international architectural movements.

Como was, in fact, one of the centres of European rationalism, a movement that had in Giuseppe Terragni one of its most important figures.

Rationalist architecture originated in Germany and is characterised by a strong link between form, function and synthesis, avoiding mere decoration.
Italian Rationalism, on the other hand, began in 1927 thanks to a group of architects from the Milan Polytechnic, including the aforementioned Giuseppe Terragni, who together formed the “Gruppo 7”, a movement officially established only later under the name MIAR (Movimento Italiano per l’Architettura Razionale).
The seven members included, besides Terragni, Luigi Figini, Guido Frette, Sebastiano Larco, Gino Pollini, Carlo Enrico Rava and Ubaldo Castagnoli, who was almost immediately replaced by Adalberto Libera.
Italian Rationalism drew on the aesthetics of the European avant-gardes, seeking to mediate them with the self-representation of the fascist regime.

The MIAR, which included around fifty architects, was in fact formed after the Italian Exhibition of Rational Architecture, organized in Rome.

The most attentive and sensitive among the young interpreters of the Rationalist movement was precisely Giuseppe Terragni, born in Brianza, not far from Como.
He is remembered in the Lombard city above all for the Casa del Fascio, with its geometric structure, and the famous Novocomum, with its clear references to Soviet Constructivism.
His presence in the area and his personality certainly influenced, for a good period, the vision of architecture and the design approach of many young architects.