While Marina di Carrara experienced a purely industrial development, with the expansion of port facilities and railroad connections, Marina di Massa revealed an early vocation for tourism as early as the first half of the 19th century.
Plans for the construction of the first wooden cabins date back to 1830, while a full-fledged bathing establishment opened in 1873, connected to the town, and to the railway station, by an omnibus service. In 1906, with the opening of the Tirreno Hotel, the season of real accommodation activity opened, soon supplemented by the establishment of the first colonies, mostly linked to Catholic providentialism.
In 1908, the children’s colony “Qui si sana” opened, followed by the similar facility of the Andreina Marchetti Hospice (1909) and the St. Joseph’s Christian Brothers Pension in Turin (1910). These early, fairly small facilities were capable of accommodating between 50 and 80 children, and had essentially hygienic purposes, proposing themselves as places of care for children from the less affluent strata.
Between 1913 and 1914 the first large structure of its kind, the Ugo Pisa colony, was erected, designed by the Milanese architect Arrigo Cantoni; the facility, capable of accommodating as many as 450 children, was distinguished by the unusual character of its architecture, eclectically inspired by Nordic models.
The process underwent a strong acceleration after World War I, when religious and charitable organizations were joined by public agencies and some large industrial groups. In 1927 the Lungomare di Littorio (Littorio Promenade) was inaugurated, uniting the two Navies (of Massa and Carrara), and it was along this axis that the main colonies of the period were to be built: dating from 1926 (but not completed until 1937) was the E. Motta colony, built by the Edison group, with architecture in historicist taste, while in 1928 the classically styled Colonia Marina Senese.
The construction of the imposing Fiat “Edoardo Agnelli” colony, the largest until then built, capable of accommodating 750 children, dates back to 1933. Designed by engineer Bonadè Bottino, the colony was intended for the children of the employees of the Lingotto plant, in Turin, and took the idea of the tall tower (52m) from the similar building constructed for Sestriere.
From 1936 construction finally began on the XXVIII October, with its ultra-modern building designed to accommodate as many as a thousand boys, while the following year Marina di Carrara also had its own colony with the opening of the Vercelli, designed by architects Francesco Mansutti and Gino Miozzo.
The phenomenon had certainly been supported by the propaganda needs of the fascist regime, which had sensed the great political potential of the colonies, but it also responded to a health condition with dramatic boundaries, with very high infant mortality rates.
In the postwar period, this thrust gradually came to an end, not before the erection of a last, very valuable piece of architecture, that of the Olivetti colony, designed by Annibale Fiocchi; the building, located in Marina di Massa a few meters from the beach, returns to smaller dimensions, compared to the “giants” of the 1930s, and is considered one of the most relevant interventions on an architectural scale, carried out in the Apuan area in the postwar period. The building, with a rationalist imprint, stands out for the purity of its lines, and unfortunately lies in a state of abandonment, almost submerged by vegetation.
The fate of the Colonies, having lost their original function, has almost always passed through long phases of abandonment: this is the case of the Ugo Pisa, whose architecture, already greatly altered, is destined for demolition, and of the Vercelli, which, famous for its lush vegetation (so much so that it deserved the nicknames “Villaggio Paradiso” or “Sangrilà”), was reduced to barracks and refugee camp. One part of the complex, completely disrupted in its architectural features, houses part of the State Professional Institute for Maritime Activities, another was demolished to make way for a Carabinieri barracks, while the remaining building body neglected and uninhabited for several years.
The Turin colony, with its huge main front (over two hundred meters in length), has been waiting for years for repeatedly announced restoration work to begin, as has the nearby Motta colony.
Better are the conditions of the Senese, longtime home of the Santa Maria alla Pineta – Don Carlo Gnocchi Center, and of the Edoardo Agnelli, which (miraculously) retains its receptive function: the spectacular propeller ramp that connects the seventeen floors in a single development still exists inside. The structure, illuminated by the very tall stairwell, was divided into twenty-five thirty-bed dormitories, now subdivided into rooms more in keeping with modern tourist accommodation. Modernized in its facilities, but preserved in its layout, including original finishes and materials, the “Fiat Tower,” built in only 100 days, still dominates the coastal landscape with its huge white bulk, sending a message of hope for the future of these imposing structures.