Curiosity
Former Ticosa Silk-Printing Works and Santarella Power House
Como’s luxury silk has an awkward backstage: workers, chemicals, heavy industry—and, here, an enormous gap where most of the factory has disappeared.
Why it is worth the detour
This striking void in central Como was once Ticosa, a major silk-dyeing and printing complex. Most of it has vanished, leaving the Santarella power house and a northern industrial section as fragments of the city behind the luxury label.
Once a bustling silk-dyeing and printing complex, the Former Ticosa Silk-Printing Works now stands as a striking void in central Como, with only the Santarella power house and a northern industrial section remaining. It offers a glimpse into the city's industrial past behind its luxury image.
What else is close by
The nearest places we have written up, with straight-line distance from here.
300 m
Basilica of Sant'Abbondio
Your map says Via Regina 35. Look up: modern Como has just been interrupted by an 11th-century Romanesque basilica.
450 m
Former Giovanni Bianchi Silk Workshop
Chiffon runs down an absurdly long table while looms clatter nearby. At Via Milano 26, Giovanni Bianchi built a silk business around handwork—before the family moved beyond Como and technology changed the plot.
450 m
Sant'Elia Nursery School
Como’s textile economy is gathering speed, the workers’ district is growing, and many mothers are heading to work. One practical question follows them out the door: who looks after the children?
500 m
Gattoni Tower
Clouds gather over Como, but the street is still dry. Then bells ring and a pistol cracks from a medieval tower—not an attack, but an eighteenth-century storm warning powered by electricity in the air.
500 m
Casa Cattaneo-Alchieri
Look up: one apartment block is doing its best impression of a pile of private villas. Pietro Lingeri built the illusion with projecting terraces—then returned in the 1950s and disrupted his own skyline.
550 m
Casa Pedraglio
Mid-construction, Casa Pedraglio lost two structural bays. The apartment house carried on anyway, leaving Terragni’s composition with architecture’s equivalent of deleted paragraphs still showing.
Walk it with the stories
This address is one stop among many. Our routes and quests link them into a walk that makes sense on the ground.