Crossing the beautiful and shady Viale Apua, the main street that connects the historic center of Pietrasanta to the Marina with its beaches and its enchanting sea, one cannot fail to notice a majestic structure partly dotted with beautiful ceramic tiles depicting marine scenes (work of the artist Antonia Ciampi), placed just before the roundabout. This is the former Laveno colony, one of the most famous historic buildings in Pietrasanta, which embodies an important history. The property has now been in a state of neglect and decay for forty years, but in the seventies of the last century it was a point of reference for many children and families.
The building was built in 1947 and its purpose was precisely to welcome the children of the workers of the Italian Ceramics of Laveno Mombello for the summer holidays. This is why the name Laveno, which is an Italian town of about eight thousand inhabitants located in the province of Varese, in Lombardy, located on the shores of the beautiful Lake Maggiore.
But let's take a step back in time, up to 1856, to understand the history of Laveno Mombello's ceramics. In fact, in that year, the C.C.R. company was founded, which over time became the Italian Ceramic Society, famous all over the world for its modern and unique structures, in particular for the presence of a continuous electric tunnel kiln for high temperatures that it was the largest present in all of Europe. Around the thirties and forties of the twentieth century, the town of Laveno Mombello housed an important school for the processing of ceramics, from which well-trained students came out and were in demand from all over the globe. Thanks to this enormous success, the company expanded more and more until the Italian Ceramic Company was taken over by Richard Ginori, giving life to the Richard-Ginori Italian Ceramic Company.
To meet the needs of working families, it was decided to build a building in Marina di Pietrasanta that would house the children of the employees to allow them to spend their summer holidays by the sea. The main structure of the colony was truly fascinating and developed on three floors and was connected to a further level arranged perpendicularly where the canteen was located. In all, the building housed about 300 children every year.
Later, around the Eighties, Pietrasanta decided to buy the colony with the project of transforming it into an administrative headquarters of the Usl company, which was recently founded, but the project will not go through: the municipality tried to give the building to the The province, however, blocked the renovations and the building was abandoned. Over time, many have hypothesized new projects for the former Laveno building, but none of these were ever fully pursued.
A building with a very important history that today is in a state of disrepair that is not acceptable for a city as avant-garde as Pietrasanta. Today the property sheet is still present on the website of the Tuscany Region among the notices for the alienation of valuable assets and the building has become a constraint of Cultural Heritage, but the card states that the former Laveno has been reserved for "destination hotel and RTA ”and a restoration and renovation work is planned. In the hope that the building will return to its former glory, being located in a truly strategic point and in an area surrounded by greenery and charming villas, we can imagine the creation of a luxury hotel, through a renovation of the premises while maintaining the original features. of the old building, to keep alive the history of a place where the past echoes in every corner.
