Pino Pizzigoni’s ‘Minima House’ in Bergamo: From the Architectural Project to Its Safeguarding

The ‘Casa Minima’ designed by Pino Pizzigoni in Bergamo (1946) is a life-size model of single-family housing. A component of a ‘side-by-side’ system that was planned to generate a popular district, which was ultimately not implemented. To respond to the construction crisis following the Second World War, the architect designed an architecture that was both singular and unique in space and volume. He proposed a new model that encompassed both the housing type and the cost and time savings associated with construction. A minimalist prototype capable of combining modern construction technologies and materials used for the traditional mountain retreats in the Orobic Alps and/or for Mediterranean dwellings in the heart of the Aegean Sea. This paper proposes a new reading of the building through a careful graphical analysis that has highlighted a geometric severity and a rigor of the proportions of each of its parts, even of the furnishings. The review of the archives (architectural drawings, photographs, and documents) was accompanied by a direct observation to uncover the differences between the project idea and the built. An in-depth investigation that underlined the transformations undertaken over the time, not always respectful of the identity of the edifice until the restoration work carried out in the 1990s by the architect’s son, Attilio Pizzigoni, who brought the ‘Casa Minima’ back to its original soul.