Atlas Silk Institute

The Setificio (Technical Silk-Making Institute) was designed in 1973 by the architects Lorenzo Muzio and Franco Tartaglino Mazzucchelli in the flourishing period of Como’s textile industry. The building was devised as a true organism due to the complex distribution of the volumes of the teaching areas. The tall blocks, built of exposed reinforced concrete, house the classrooms; the low buildings, consisting of precast concrete elements, the laboratories. Part of the building now houses the Museo didattico della Seta (Educational Silk Museum).
For over a hundred years, the school has supplied technicians to companies in the Como textile industry, and many industrialists in the sector have been trained in it.

Photos by Walter Mair