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Bergamo’s palatial post office was built to impress


Not to be missed in Bergamo’s Città Bassa…

PALAZZO DELLE POSTE


Bergamo fascist architecture
Palazzo delle Poste
The main post office in Bergamo is in the Città Bassa (lower town) in Via Masone on its corner with Via Antonio Locatelli.
Like many buildings in the Città Bassa, the Palazzo delle Poste is an impressive piece of architecture, designed to follow on from the development of the lower town at the beginning of the 20th century by Marcello Piacentini.
Built of brown stone, the building has a tall clock tower and the long windows typical of 1930s architecture.
The Poste e Telegrafi building was planned in 1929 by Angiolo Mazzoni and completed in 1932. 
Mazzoni was chief architect for the Ministry of Communications and for the state railways during the Fascist era in Italy, when the government embarked on a building programme based on dynamically modern architecture to encourage the Italian people to associate Fascism with progress. Hundreds of post offices and railway stations around Italy were built from Mazzoni designs.
It is well worth a look inside to enable you to appreciate the scale and style of the building, with its glass lamps and works of art by Mario Sironi, commissioned in 1934 to decorate the ground floor sala dei telegrammi.
These include two interesting paintings on the themes of work in the fields and in the city.
The post office can be easily reached from Viale Vittorio Emmanuele by walking down Via Zelasco.



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