Biblioteca universitaria USI Lugano

March 4, 2023 In Libraries

To many, the name Ca’ Rezzonico may bring memories of a lavish baroque facade facing Venice’s Grand Canal and a rich collection of marbles, frescoes and paintings. In the Swiss city of Lugano, however, that name is more often associated with the Riziero Rezzonico Foundation, a hillside retirement home with a reputation for excellent care and lake views. The foundation is named after Giovanni Riziero Rezzonico, a wealthy cloth merchant born to a patrician Lugano family in 1809. Throughout the 19th century, hospitals in Ticino were not only in charge of patients, but also cared for orphans and people without the means to support themselves. Preoccupied with this issue, Rezzonico supported the Santa Maria hospital in Lugano financially, and stipulated the establishment of a new hospice dedicated to the old and destitute upon his death in 1887.

In charge of its construction, architect Giuseppe Fumagalli drew inspiration from the baroque palazzi that had been built in the area a century earlier for the Riva family. The three wings of unadorned stone masonry and brick-framed round arched windows were arranged in a horseshoe formation, enclosing a small courtyard. The hospice opened on December 30, 1897, its operations led by a small contingent of sisters from the St-Vincent-de-Paul convent.

Interior of a refurbished neobaroque building. It is a corridor with vaulted ceilings. To the left, small work tables face the windows, a person occupying the frontmost table. To the right are a series of doors.
Interior of a refurbished neobaroque building. It is a corridor with vaulted ceilings, seen through rows of wooden bookcases. A person sits at a table working.
Interior of a refurbished neobaroque building, showing a corridor with vaulted windows to the left, fronted by small work tables. A person sits at one of the tables. There are wooden bookcases to the right.

Originally, a large garden surrounded the property, where a gardener grew fruit and vegetables for the residents, but it gradually fell victim to the needs of the expanding city. In 1909, Giuseppe Ferla’s Ospedale Civico opened its doors nearby, replacing the older Ospedale Santa Maria. The construction of the (now defunct) Lugano-Cadro-Dino railway and the widening of Corso Elvezia and Via Madonetta in 1911 brought the bustling city life right underneath the hospice’s windows. Anticipating the growth of the Ospedale Civico, the city made several offers to relocate the Rezzonico institute, but it wasn’t until 1961 that a deal was struck and the hospice moved to its current location on Via Torricelli. By then, plans to expand the Ospedale Civico had fallen through, and the former Ca’ Rezzonico was used by the municipal school directorate until the foundation of the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in 1995 gave new life to the area.

Contemporary library interior, showing a row of square cubicles enclosed by wood lattice panels on either side of a corridor.

The new institution took over the Ospedale Civico, which had stood more or less vacant since the hospital relocated in the 1980s, as its main campus building. The former Rezzonico hospice had by then become the home of the Dalle Molle Institute, a research institute on artificial intelligence, but with the creation of the USI, the building was reallocated to welcome the new university library. Its transformation lasted between 1999 and 2002 and was led by Michele and Giorgio Tognola.

Exterior of the USI library in Lugano, Switzerland. It is a neobaroque building with vaulted windows and unadorned stone facade, with a contemporary concrete and metal extension to the right. The modern extension resembles a lattice of concrete elements supporting dark metal boxes. A woman walks in front the building.
From the exterior, the visual impact of the transformation is concentrated on the new east wing, leaving the other three facades mostly untouched.
Contemporary library interior, showing a concrete and glass staircase. At the back is a bank of black steel elevator doors.
Circulation between floors was relocated to the new extension, freeing the original floors for uninterrupted use.

The Tognola brothers added a distinctive fourth wing, enclosing the courtyard and reorienting the building towards the university campus to the east. The new facade, with its lattice of square elements, provides a visual signature to the library. Relocating stairs and lifts to the modern extension opened the floors of the former hospice for reuse as reading rooms and book storage. More workstations are situated along the former corridors, facing the now enclosed courtyard.

Contemporary library interior, showing a row of square cubicles enclosed by wood lattice panels.
Interior of a contemporary library showing a person sitting in a cubicle.
Contemporary library interior, showing a concrete and glass staircase.

Among the most distinctive features of the modern wing are the individual cubicles that fill the distinctive blocks of the east facade. Akin to the cells of a beehive, each holds a work table lit by small windows and surrounded by wooden lattice panels.

Exterior of the USI library in Lugano, Switzerland, showing its contemporary east facade, which resembles a lattice of concrete elements supporting dark metal boxes. There are trees and a lawn at the front. To the right, the street can be seen fronting the building.
Each element on the east facade corresponds to a work carrel.

The images illustrating this post date from my visit in September 2022.

This post is part of a series on adaptive reuse in libraries. See the list of such projects I am maintaining or view other posts in this series.

References

  1. Camenisch, Y. (2008). Per una storia della Fondazione del Luogo Pio G. Riziero Rezzonico. Bollettino Storico Della Svizzera Italiana, 109(2), pp. 421–454.
  2. Tognola, M., & Tognola, G. (2002). Il campus dell’Università della Svizzera Italiana a Lugano: Biblioteca. Archi : rivista svizzera di architettura, ingegneria e urbanistica = Swiss review of architecture, engineering and urban planning, 2002(4), pp. 48–53.
  3. Anchora, D. (2021). Biblioteca universitaria. Lugano Storia.
  4. Biblioteca USI. (n.d.). Vitruvio.ch. Retrieved March 4, 2023
  5. Hauser, A. (1991). Lugano. In INSA : Inventar der neueren Schweizer Architektur: Städte = Inventaire suisse d’architecture: Villes = Inventario svizzero di architettura: Città: 1850-1920 (Vol. 6, pp. 205–355). Orell Füssli ; Gesellschaft für schweizerische Kunstgeschichte.
  6. Lessico storico dell’USI : Lugano. (n.d.). USI25. Retrieved March 4, 2023
  7. Guidi, M. (1944). Il Barocco nel Ticino (Sottoceneri). Zeitschrift für schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte = Revue suisse d’art et d’archéologie = Rivista svizzera d’arte e d’archeologia = Journal of Swiss archeology and art history, 6(3), pp. 135–143.



Content note

Library detail pages are primarily a place for me to collect information I gather on the libraries I visit, and are frequently updated. None of this should be considered authoritative, I am not an architect, nor a historian. If you notice something incorrect, please let me know!



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