Architecture

Novocomum

The scaffolding comes down, and Como realizes the conservative building approved on paper has become something radically avant-garde. The city has been architecturally catfished.

Address: Via Giuseppe Sinigaglia 1, Como
Area: Como, Italy

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Why it is worth the detour

Novocomum is the apartment block Giuseppe Terragni slipped past the authorities using conservative-looking plans, only to unveil a radically avant-garde building behind the scaffolding. The resulting scandal became an early battle over Italian Rationalism.

Novocomum is an architectural landmark in Como, designed by Giuseppe Terragni. It is notable for its radical design that challenged traditional architectural norms, marking an important moment in the history of Italian Rationalism.

The people behind this address

Documented connections, not celebrity trivia.

Giuseppe Terragni
Created here
Terragni designed and built Novocomum in 1927–1929 as his first completed building.

What else is close by

The nearest places we have written up, with straight-line distance from here.

200 m
Canottieri Lario Clubhouse
Antonietta Sinigaglia commemorated her champion-rower son Giuseppe not with a statue, but with a clubhouse built on Como’s reclaimed shore—reportedly in just seven months.
200 m
Casa Giuliani-Frigerio
Drawings and detailed instructions are being sent from military training to Como. Giuseppe Terragni is serving in the Italian army, yet the building in front of you is still taking shape — architecture conducted at a distance.
200 m
Como War Memorial
Lake Como usually gets the soft-focus treatment: water, mountains, palaces. Then, on Via Giancarlo Puecher, a war memorial interrupts the postcard and changes the mood.
250 m
Monument to the European Resistance
You’re on Lungolago Mafalda di Savoia, firmly in Como—then the monument’s four-word Italian title suddenly expands the map to Europe.
250 m
Tempio Voltiano
Lake Como fills the backdrop; on the shore, a Neoclassical temple gives full ceremonial treatment to a physicist and his battery. No saint, no emperor—just Como-born Alessandro Volta.
350 m
Bruno Pessina Workers’ Houses and Factory Chimney
The chimney gives the game away. This stretch of Borgo Vico now blends into the city, but the brick survivor above you belonged to a silk works that employed as many as 160 people in the 1930s.