Colonia di Monte Maggio, Summer camp in Savignone, Italy.
The Colonia di Monte Maggio is a summer camp set in a chestnut forest in the Ligurian Apennines, composed of three building groups with sloped roofs. The complex occupies a forested mountain site at roughly 800 meters elevation.
Designed by engineer Camillo Nardi Greco between 1933 and 1934, it opened as a summer colony in 1938. The project reflected the rationalist architecture promoted during fascist Italy and represented the era's belief in mountain air as beneficial for children.
The name "Colonia Montana Monte Maggio" stands in large relief letters across the main facade, and two side walls keep painted murals: one shows a map of fascist Italy with Libya, Somalia and Ethiopia, the other the colony itself with an aeroplane, a balloon and a skier. The facade inscriptions praising the Fascist Party were erased after the war.
The camp sits at the end of a narrow access road branching from provincial road SP 10, connected to paths leading into the Monte Maggio area. Its remote forest location means visitors will need their own transport or local arrangements to reach it.
The mural on the right wall shows the colony building itself, with an aeroplane, a hot-air balloon and a ski jumper in the sky above it, and a ski slope with a descending skier at the lower right. These painted scenes survive on the facade, while the fascist inscriptions on the main front were erased after the war.
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