Temples for Industrious Lombards

Suspended shell structures, underground living rooms and luminous domes. On the Lombard plain between the Ticino valley and the industrial outskirts of Milan, ensconced amid fields of crops, lies Inveruno, home to the architecture of Mario Galvagni, designed between the 1960s and 1980s for local industrial families. These villas would host large dinner parties and masked balls, as captured in the photographs unearthed from Gianni Saracchi’s archive. Each house is unique while still sharing something with the others: each is a temple where the industrious Lombard lives with his family and hosts fruitful business meetings. The architecture, photographed by Allegra Martin and Francesco Paleari, serves as the backdrop against which Emmanuela Carbé and Paolo Colagrande’s stories take shape. A critical essay by Francesca Olivieri frames the oeuvre of Mario Galvagni.