In La Spezia, the great futurist mosaic that decorates the interior of the Palazzo delle Poste in Piazza Verdi is definitely a hidden treasure of incredible value. Not to be missed, Saturday, June 4, the chance to visit the tower and its mosaic, not normally visible to the public, for free.
La Spezia was, for the Futurist movement, the City of the Future: the city at that time was rapidly expanding thanks to the war industry, the most important exponent of the Futurismtic poetry Filippo Tommaso Marinetti here conceived the Painting Prize “Gulf La Spezia “, which was to be celebrated in La Spezia, and the city was inspiration for his controversial “Aeropoema”.
In this context, the architect Mazzoni realized the project of the Post Office building, which included the inner walls of the tower decorated with a work of artistic value. Inside the tower it was in fact achieved an extraordinary mosaic by the two great Futurist masters Luigi Fillia and Enrico Prampolini, with tiles produced by Ceramica Vaccari (at the time one of the most important tiles factories in Italy, in the nearby Ponzano Magra).
The mosaic is embedded in the building and celebrates communications and transports by sea, by air and by land with ships and aircrafts in the foreground and the sea of the Gulf in the background: it is one of the most important expressions in pictorial architecture avant-garde Futurism. The mosaic technique ensures that the image appears cropped in the masonry of background bricks.
Saturday morning the appointment at the post office in Piazza Verdi is at 10:15 hours. For a free visit reservations are required at 0039 347 4018122.
This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)