Monumento ai Caduti

Como’s Monumento ai Caduti is a memorial to the city’s First World War dead and a major work of Italian Rationalist architecture. Its design developed from a drawing by the Futurist Antonio Sant’Elia, interpreted through the work of Enrico Prampolini and Giuseppe Terragni.

Why it matters

The memorial brings together the vision of Sant’Elia, who died in the First World War, and the architectural language of the 1930s. A drawing by Sant’Elia inspired Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s proposal to create a monument; Enrico Prampolini developed the project, with contributions from Attilio Terragni and Giuseppe Terragni. The result connects Como’s remembrance of the war with the city’s modernist architecture.

What to notice

The memorial rises as a tall stone tower above the lakefront public gardens. Its stepped masses and spare surfaces give the structure a strong vertical profile. The crypt and sacellum designed by Giuseppe Terragni extend the monument’s geometry into more intimate spaces. Its position beside the Tempio Voltiano places it within Como’s civic landscape along the lake.

Context and history

After earlier proposals were rejected, the memorial developed in the early 1930s from Sant’Elia’s drawing, Marinetti’s proposal and Prampolini’s architectural project, with contributions from Attilio and Giuseppe Terragni. It was inaugurated on 4 November 1933. The monument’s design joined remembrance of the First World War with the emerging Rationalist architecture associated with Como.