The workers’ village of Villa Crespi,
tribute to the Italian genius
Nineteenth-century dream
of an entrepreneur
“enlightened”
who lives in the present
From Dora Ravanelli
“Modern Times”. Times with eyes and mind projected onto the future. Maybe even a little megalomaniac, but generous towards others, open to the world. The year was 1876 in the Bergamo area bordered by the Adda river, today the Capriate San Gervasio exit of the Serenissima motorway (halfway between Milan and Bergamo). The English industrial revolution, which had revolutionized production methods using new driving forces and, consequently, new machinery, invaded Europe. Especially in certain sectors, such as spinning, modernity made its presence felt forcefully. Catching it or not determined the success or otherwise of an undertaking. And the Crespi family, cotton mills in Busto Arsizio, took it all, this success. Moreover. He went further with “thoughts and words”, words which in the very concrete world of what today (not by chance with an Anglo-Saxon term) we call “business”, translate into facts. And here comes the story-telling, imaginative and concrete genius (these adjectives are contradictory, but, in this case, they rhyme with each other) of Cristoforo Benigno Crespi, the creator and founder of the Crespi d’Adda workers’ village, an absolute example of “enlightened” entrepreneurship, today visible and visitable in its integrity and vitalitywhere it was in the nineteenth century, overlooking the Adda. And also in its beauty, because “useful things can and must also be beautiful”, suggested the most refined thought of the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie.
The idea on which everything revolves is: I, an entrepreneur, take care of you – who work for me and determine my success or failure – from the “cradle to the coffin”. I give you well-being, privileges such as a home, school for your children, a hospital with cutting-edge diagnostic equipment, a doctor dedicated only to you employees (from the worker to the manager), public bathrooms with hot water, wash houses for clothes (to alleviate the fatigue of women), swimming pool and diving board (in 1878!), the food shop, the cinema and the theatre, the musical band, the after-work club for free time (only for male employees , of course, and it is forbidden to drink more than the second glass of wine), the pine forest, the church, the cemetery (funeral expenses paid by the property)… everything, absolutely everything, to make your life easier (the very hard life of farmers, first ). The consideration? You become “family”, you give everything, from loyalty to muscles. “Do ut des”, but, in the 19th century, what an idea, what commitment, what extraordinary realities!
Here it is, the workers’ village of Crespi d’Adda – whose cotton mill was inaugurated two years later, in 1878 – and which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995. Today it is in second place among the most visited industrial sites in Italy. Nothing “fake”. Everything lives on a daily basis not for the use of visitors, but because the village is very much alive. It is not a coincidence, but the fruit of the commitment of the Crespi d’Adda Association (www.crespidadda.it) which brings together men of passion and culture (many young people), engaged for years in the “resurrection” of the village and its inexhaustible source of teaching and new ideas, capable of generating value and attractiveness for the entire territory. Among the ongoing cultural initiatives linked to the world of work (throughout November and until 19 December) and as part of the Produzioni Ininterrotte Festival (www.produzioniininterrotte.it): the Literary Tours, which combine literature and guided tours – also in collaboration with other public and private entities – to discover places of industrial archeology told in novels and essays, and often inaccessible to the public (www.tourletterari.it).
You enter the village naturally (the past is very much present in a 2 km walk), better if accompanied by a guide (tel. 02.90939988) to fully enjoy the concentration of excellence expressed here. The main road is the road axis that separates the inhabited nucleus from the river side and the canal with the hydroelectric power plant from 1909 (fully operational) and with the original entrance to the factory, two flights of stairs. Three structures stand out at the sight and form a rectangle, once temporary accommodation for the workers, all ex-peasants, except for the managers. Today they are private apartments with public businesses at street level. On the opposite side of the street, daily life flows. Of quality and well furnished with charm, recreating the atmosphere of the past, “At the Dopolavoro” (tel. 348.1152700), bar, pizzeria, but above all restaurant which in the seasonal menu always features at least one traditional local dish such as casoncelli with crispy bacon and parmesan flakes among the first courses, polenta with beef in oil among the second courses, a delicious apple pie (average price: 45 euros). Next to it, a valuable wash house in red bricks and arches, deliberately left to the whims of time. Looking up, a hill in the green with two villas: the priest’s and the doctor’s, in a dominant position to guard and protect the soul and body of the inhabitants.
Then, side by side, unfold the square church with an octagonal dome (modeled on that of Busto Arsizio, Crespi’s hometown) and the former school for the children of employees (compulsory education, here, up to 11 years old versus the 9 established by law!), now a participatory museum: two rooms in the dark, small, well-kept, an illuminated showcase with objects from a time that is still alive. There are also two screens, on which different videos flow. The second is curious, in which the key characters of the past are acted and brought to life in just a few lines: the doctor, the chaplain, the worker, the teacher, the little weaver… The museum is also home to themed meetings, from discuss and implement. Adjacent are the laboratory environments intended for school groups. At the entrance to the building, a nineteenth-century wood and cast iron carding machine from the English company Platt Brothers. For visitors it is welcome and a sort of reminder of the village’s records: the first cotton production driven by a hydroelectric power plant, the first interurban train with a mechanically traction steam locomotive (1878) called “El Gamba de Legn”, in 1891 the never seen removers of substances harmful to health in the factory, the unprecedented telephone line that connected the village to the Milanese house of Crespi (who later moved here), the dazzling lighting system that gave light to the whole village at the same time by pressing a single button (it had not yet been applied in Milan), the only looms that wove Jacquard fabric in the 1920s, a quarter of the customers of international origin…
Behind it lies the village, on a strictly geometric plan with 55 houses for the worksstrictly identical to each other (two floors with windows, vegetable garden on 4 sides, square, whitewashed today), with street names that evoke the “great” Italians in multiple perspectives: Manzoni, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Donizetti … but also places of national glory such as Fiume. In addition, 4 villas for employees plus 9 for managers – with trees, among the private greenery, with tall trunks – and more articulated, more beautiful, taller, with friezes, to indicate – like it or not – a separation of duties and class. In the half century of life of the Crespi Village, as conceived by its founder and then continued by his son Silvio, the numbers, as already seen, are important: 80,000 m2 covered only for the area on which the cotton mill stands – delimited by bricks with 8-pointed terracotta decorations; 70,000 weaving spindles; 4,000 workers between weaving, carding and dyeing departments; the chimney, 70 m high, also made of red bricks, which exhibited – and displays – a clock to mark the precious time of work and that of life. It stopped indicating the hours in 2003, when the factory closed its regal gates forever, watched over by two elegant buildings with management offices. The most difficult historical periods were those of the twenty years and the post-war period. Even then, however, the Crespi Cotonificio boasted a record: the first Italian textile factory to process denim, the jeans fabric. And then years of depredations and abandonment until it became, by specific will of some “enlightened” people (the term used is always the same), a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Now with its new life (around 300 resident-owners, many descendants of the workers of the past), it regains its past glory, paying homage to the men “who were” in the tidy city cemetery, equidistant stele-tombs on lawns green. A neo-Gothic masterpiece dominates: the mausoleum of – and for – the Crespi family.
He answers him from the other side of the village – the one lapped by the Adda river, a singing river, green banks, leafy trees, the adjacent Crespi artificial canal – the bold and bold tower of the Crespi residence (for sale): an austere neo-Gothic style castle and fantastic at the same time (inside, an immense central atrium and 44 rooms), which seems to come out of a Disney film, but without grim or scary connotations. Outside, a park, silence, no noise except that caused by the fall of the water exploited by the centuries-old hydroelectric power plant. A power that is still used today, depending on the river’s water flow, i.e. on average 6 months out of 12). It can be visited inside: large cast iron machinery-contraptions, giant wheels reminiscent of those from the film “Tempi modern” with Charlot, ladders for maintenance and control of the gears, raised pulpit for controlling the system in “boiserie” and frosted glass. It seems perfect setting for an Agata Christie mystery, but also for a successful advertisement today. It is always the powerful past that does not age, is recycled, becomes the present. The facade? That of a cathedral which, instead of lateral rose windows, has two fans built into niches. And then the material used: the “strain” of the Adda, a mixture of sand, gravel and other materials pressed by the water, that of the river and that’s it. Excellent for constructions that last for centuries.
Immerse yourself in this imaginative and concrete reality together. It is experiencing a moment of Italian pride, which has no political color. It simply “is”. And it still “is”. Go, if possible, on a day with blue skies. We won’t tell you the rest (much). Find out for yourself. It will, however, be a “special day”, one of those that remain. (For further information: www.crespidadda.it)