Art nouveau building demolished

The demolition of “Villa Bianchi” has begun. The “judgement” of the Cultural Heritage Office came a few hours ago. No artistic constraint for the art nouveau house. And so, the owners let the bulldozers proceed with the demolition of the building, which will make room for a housing complex. Hopes of saving the house were raised a few weeks ago, when the Office forced interruption of the work, to make a further decision, after controversy and attention resulted from a visit by Vittorio Sgarbi. In the past, the Office failed to set any constraints, but simply made a few observations about the project. Then, the Mayor, Matteo Bianchi, became involved in talks with the owners.

On Thursday morning, after the decision by the Cultural Heritage Office, the demolition began, destroying all hopes of saving the house.

“I feel depressed today,” explained Matteo Bianchi, the Mayor of Morazzone, near Varese, “because we had started to battle, with the support of Vittorio Sgarbi, to get a protection order placed on the building. Unfortunately, our appeals have not succeeded, and that makes me very sad; at this time, I can only promise, as I did to the town council, that this will not happen again. We have already taken measures to introduce an urban planning program, which will come into effect next spring: in the program, protection orders will be placed on about a dozen valuable buildings.”

The former owner of the house, Bambi Lazzati, said, “Even the war failed to demolish it. It took men in times of peace to succeed.”