Study for the Città Nuova (New City)

The nucleus of drawings by the futurist architect Antonio Sant’Elia is an important collection at the Civic Museums of Como. Although he did not complete a great deal of architecture building, he distinguished
himself by designing modern utopian constructions that renewed 19th-century eclectic architecture in the name of simplicity of form, orderly lines and the use of modern materials such as iron and glass. Author
of the Manifesto of Futurist Architecture (1914), Sant’Elia brought to his projects a great enthusiasm for technological innovations and the vitalistic activism of the modern city. The design of the Torre Faro (Monument with Lanterns), now displays modernity in its structural components, with its elevation, symmetry, and linear forms devoid of secondary ornamentation. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti used the drawing as a model for the design of the Monumento ai Caduti di Como (War Memorial in Como), installed on the lakeside in 1933 by Giuseppe Terragni. The series of plates of the Città Nuova, express the culmination of his idea of a visionary city of the future made up of bridges, footbridges, flyovers, train tracks passing under and through dizzyingly high buildings, and cars speeding along motorways in the heart of the city. (E. Di Raddo)