In 1930 Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, founder of Futurism, had suggested that the Como War Memorial be built by taking up a 1914 sketch of a “tower-lighthouse” for a “power plant” by Antonio Sant’Elia, the great Como Futurist architect who died in the Great War.
The idea had appealed to the then podestà Luigi Negretti, who had entrusted the futurist painter Enrico Prampolini and the more rationalist brothers Attilio and Giuseppe Terragni with the task of preparing the design and directing the work.
The monument was inaugurated on November 4, 1933: it looks like an imposing concrete tower covered with limestone from the Karst (theater of war), resting on an imposing base and soaring skyward.
An absolutely visible and recognizable element from afar, as a reminder of the sacrifice of so many young lives for the Fatherland and as a warning to avoid the horrors of war.
