Recuperare il moderno. Una “fragile” opera di Ignazio Gardella Recovering the modern. A “fragile” work of Ignazio Gardella

At the beginning of the 20th century the Borsalino family, owners of the well-known hat factory, in an effort to build a modern and efficient city, entrusted several construction sites to Arnaldo Gardella and his partner Luigi Martini. The entanglement between Alessandria, the Borsalinos, and the Gardellas grew closer over the years. The intense activity of the Gardella Martini firm was interrupted by Arnaldo's sudden death in 1928. The construction site of the sanatorium, in the Orti district, was the setting for the forced passing of the torch between the father and his son Ignazio Gardella who, even though he had not yet graduated, was called upon to replace him abruptly. This opened a season that brought Alessandria to the center of twentieth-century architectural history. Some masterpieces, later recognized by international critics, would be built here. Within the construction site of the sanatorium, yet to be completed, the young Ignazio took charge of the design of the small church, a manifesto of one of the future protagonists of the Italian twentieth century. The chapel possesses, in essence, the elements that characterize the modern movement (bell tower, blades of light to illuminate the apse, the anomalous floor plan separated by the thick septum wall wanted by the iron rules imposed for tuberculosis patients and excavated to house the confessionals) but unfortunately today it demonstrates its fragility.