The Asilo Sant’Elia, in via Alciato in Como, is the nursery school that Giuseppe Terragni designed for a working-class district and that was inaugurated on 31 October 1937. Children used it until 2019; since then it has been closed and opens to the public only on special days, mostly by booking.
History
The need for a new nursery school arose in 1925, when the old Umberto I school in via Zezio passed to the Province and the Sant’Elia district was left without a school nearby. The works were promoted by the Congregazione di carità, which for years weighed sites and proposals: a 1930 project by the engineer Attilio Cattaneo came to nothing, and only on 23 January 1935 was the purchase signed for the plot between via Alciato and via dei Mille, next to a district of workers’ housing built from 1914 by the Società Cooperativa Edificatrice. The commission passed from Attilio Terragni, the Congregazione’s consultant for nursery schools, to his brother Giuseppe, who according to the Lombardy Region drew up the design from the start; the MAARC adds that the Congregazione’s president, Damiano Cattaneo, left him complete freedom.
The design went through three versions. The first, submitted to the Comune on 4 October 1934, already fixed the scheme of rectangular blocks inscribed in a square; the second, of 5 August 1935, answered a request to take in more children and to add a cloakroom; the final one reached the Comune on 10 March 1936 (Wikipedia dates the design to 1935). The foundation stone was laid on 21 May 1936 in the presence of the minister of education Cesare Maria De Vecchi, the masonry was by the firm Balzarini e Bianchi, and the inauguration took place on 31 October 1937. The school rose in a poor outlying area, close to the textile factories where many of the district’s women worked (Memoria Scolastica).
In the 2019-2020 school year teaching moved to the «S. Gobbi» school because of renovation works, and the Sant’Elia nursery school is now based at via Viganò 7 (Istituto comprensivo Como Centro). The building, owned by the Comune, was restored in the 1980s and is now the subject of studies with the Politecnico di Milano and the Soprintendenza. The first intervention concerns the large curtains: estimated cost 120 thousand euro, 97 thousand from cross-border workers’ tax transfers and 23 thousand from the FAI, which funded it through its «I luoghi del cuore» call; according to the municipal document reported by EspansioneTv on 3 June 2026 the project will be drawn up between June and December 2026, with works planned between January and June 2027. Also according to EspansioneTv, a return to use as a nursery school seems ruled out.
What to see
The plot is a trapezium and the building, an open U in plan, sits in the middle of the land with low volumes arranged around a courtyard and surrounded by a garden. The regional record gives its height: it does not exceed five metres outside and measures four and a half metres inside. The wing on the street houses the hall, cloakroom and services; the wing of classrooms and play areas looks onto the courtyard, another houses the gym, and the refectory stands further back, parallel to the street.
Towards the street the facade is solid and smooth, with no projections. On the garden side, by contrast, the walls are almost entirely glass, and the classrooms can be extended outdoors under curtains stretched between the building and a frame of pillars and beams; light frames and canopies project from the fronts but are deliberately kept detached from the volumes. Inside, according to the MAARC, the walls between classrooms are movable, so that spaces can be joined. For the Region the school takes up some themes of the Casa del Fascio with greater freedom.
Practical information
- Address: via Andrea Alciato 15, at the corner with via dei Mille (as written by the regional record and the FAI; the Oggi a Como portal gives number 13).
- The building has been closed to the public since 2019 and the Comune’s Oggi a Como portal says it is closed for safety works. It can be visited on special openings with guided tours, mostly by booking. In 2026 three were announced: 26 February (FAI, from 2 to 5 pm), 24 April (FAI) and 6 June (the Made in MAARC association, from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm). After 6 June we found no further dates on official sources: it is worth checking the websites of the Comune di Como, the FAI and the MAARC.
- The «Cammino della città moderna» route by Camminacittà runs along the pavement of via Alciato and via dei Mille and starts right at the entrance: from here to piazza del Popolo it is about 2.2 kilometres and 45 minutes on foot, according to the project. To get there, Camminacittà lists the city buses and Trenord’s Como Borghi station (2021-2023 data, to be checked).
- Information: Como Info Point, infopointcomo@comune.como.it, +39 031 304137 (data from the Oggi a Como portal).
- Other works by Terragni in the city: Palazzo Terragni, the Novocomum and Casa Giuliani Frigerio, all on the itinerary Rationalist Como.
Sources
- Lombardia Beni Culturali, Asilo Sant’Elia record
- MAARC, Asilo infantile Antonio Sant’Elia
- Memoria Scolastica (Roma TrE-Press), Asilo Sant’Elia, 2021
- Comune di Como, press release of 9 May 2025 and Oggi a Como, Asilo Sant’Elia
- EspansioneTv, articles of 21 January, 19 February, 17 April and 3 June 2026
- Camminacittà, Como Percorso 5; Istituto comprensivo Como Centro, Scuola dell’Infanzia Sant’Elia
- Wikipedia, entry Asilo Sant’Elia.
