Dalmine: il riuso contemporaneo della company town di Giovanni Greppi

Nowadays, visiting the city of Dalmine and looking beyond its new function of university campus the marks of the utopian design of the ‘company town’ imagined by the architect Giovanni Greppi are still largely visible. Born from the social tension of an Italy deeply changed by the First World War, the small center embodied the will of the Fascist regime to create a new ideal city in which the company was charged with the well-being and serenity of the workers. Founded in 1927 on the land adjacent to the factory, Dalmine grows around the new piazza dell’Impero and include several architectural works, which constitute the nodes of a complex and efficient system of human relations, representing its material trace and its strongest identity character. Following the sale to the Municipality of the main social buildings and the alienation of some other assets to private individuals, the city of Greppi seems to have managed to preserve its founding elements. However, it appears deeply threatened by both the disorder of the surrounding contemporary urbanization and by the users transformation needs. Nevertheless, the Piano di Governo del Territorio tries to safeguard the formal and foundational matrix of the centre of the city through an ad hoc regulation, studying first the architectural and environmental values worthy of being highlighted and preserved, and at the same time indicating the designing procedure requested for their recognition, transformation and emphasis.