Crespi d’Adda workers’ village is a UNESCO site

A modern vision of the ideal city built around the life of the local manufacturing companies and the family.

Crespi d’Adda workers’ village is a UNESCO world heritage site since 1995: an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble of working class village developed between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These workers’ village were present in Europe and North America and we are proud that Crespi d’Adda is the most complete and best preserved in Southern Europe.

It was built in 1878 by will of the cotton industrialist Crespi, who wanted an ideal working class town, in which employees and their families could have everything they need for their life: church, school, hospital, recreational club, theater, public baths, food and clothing shops.
The village has a geometric structure, based on the factory extending on the main road axis. Buildings are placed in a very orderly and precise way. Workers’ houses are English structure oriented: about fifty houses well aligned, each with orchard and garden. Employees’ cottages, beautiful villas reserved for executives and the castle-tower villa where owner’s family lived.

Crespi d’Adda is still a lively community in which most of the residents descending from the ancient workers. The cotton factory was functioning until 2004.
Crespi d’Adda workers’ village is also a starting point to take the pedestrian and cycle path along the Adda river to experience different and impressive itineraries full of historical and cultural sites.

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Articolo aggiornato il 8 June 2022 da eccoLecco