Architecture

Portogruaro (Italy). I have been watching this building for several years: every time I was arriving to or leaving from the small train station of Portogruaro (a town in the north east of Italy), my eyes were totally captured by this huge sample of industrial archaeology.

Surfing the web, I discovered some interesting things about this building. First of all, it dates back to 1949 (imagine: the Second World War was just finished and Italy was trying to resurrect) and it was built on a former industrial area operative since the beginning of the XX century. The shapes of the two ceiling were two huge paraboloids (37 meters wide, 28 meters high and 70 – the first building – or 90 meters long). These buildings were hosting the activities of the Perfosfati – a large Italian company specialized in producing fertilizers – and their operations ended in 1989, with the closure of the entire complex. Since then, the area was reclaimed (not completely, though) and then abandoned, as it is now.

However, – do not ask me why – I love these buildings! Behind their architecture and their shapes, there’s a long industrial history. The idea that every day hundreds of people were coming here to work, clashes dramatically with its current abandoned status. It looks like a “devastated cathedral” or a ghost town, but it contains the heritage of an industrial past and can therefore be seen as a monument to hundreds of workers that spent part of their life here.

For this reason, when some days ago I arrived here several minutes earlier than my train’s departure, and behind the building there was an amazing sunset coloring the cloudy sky of an intense red, I thought it was the perfect moment to capture this photograph. But I hope that the next photo I will take from here, will talk about the restoration (and development) of this abandoned area.