Kapannone dei Libri

A former industrial shed on Angera's working edge now holds 400 square metres of metal shelving loaded with artist books signed by Joan Miró and Henri Matisse, twentieth-century literary reviews, pop-up books, nineteenth-century volumes and some 12,000 original film posters.

Why it matters

The Kapannone dei Libri is the project of Andrea Kerbaker, a Milanese writer and bibliophile who turned an unexpected container — an ex-industrial capannone near the lake — into a working temple of book culture. The Angera space pairs its former industrial shell with shelves of artist books, literary reviews, pop-up books and film posters.

What to notice

The collections read like a private obsession made public. Alongside the signed artist books sit 20th-century reviews of poetry and literature, the classic comics of the twentieth century, pop-up books engineered to astonish page by page, and antique volumes of the 1800s. The cinema wall assembles 12,000 original posters from international film, an archive-scale record of the seventh art. The fitting-out is by architects Matteo Ferrario and Salvatore Virgillito of studio Caramob. In the Kapannina, a space designed for children, Chiara Dattola's murals of reading animals line the walls.

Context and history

The venue occupies Angera's former industrial zone. Its collections of books, art, photography and cinema give the former shed a second cultural life.