Sesto San Giovanni is an industrial community on the north-eastern side of Milan with a population of more than 75,000 which has displayed imagination and enterprise in adapting to the post-industrial world. A project entitled the ‘City of Factories’ has identified areas for development, and an exhibition in 2005 in collaboration with partners from France, Finland, the Czech Republic and Estonia explored possibilities for urban regeneration.
A Museum of Industry and Labour has been established in a large single-storey parts warehouse constructed for the Breda engineering company in 1934, and in an adjacent industrial archaeological park is displayed a huge bridge crane that once lifted scrap at a nearby steelworks. The Museum holds the archives and the contents of the workshop of the designer and model-maker Giovanni Sacchi (1913-98) who was born and spent his whole life in Sesto San Giovanni. The Museum maintains close links with an Institute of Contemporary History (ISEC), formed in 2002, which aims both to stimulate and to record memories of the industrial period in Sesto San Giovanni.
A second large warehouse building that once belonged to the Falck company has been adapted as a venue for artistic and cultural events, while two company museums have been established in the town, one by Falck and the other by Campari.
Museum of Industry and Labour
Museo dell’Industria e del Lavoro
Archivio Giovanni Sacchi
via Granelli 1
20099 Sesto San Giovanni
Italy
+39 (0) 2 - 36574321
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