Villaggio Leumann, Italy, an example of late 19th-century industrial architecture.
Villaggio Leumann was born from the vision of a Swiss entrepreneur, Napoleone Leumann (1841–1930). He believed in cooperation between social classes and the idea that a worker who lived well would work better.
Consequently, he purchased a tract of land in the Italian countryside at a bargain price and built a cotton mill along with Art Nouveau-style homes, which were then sold to low-income workers. At the time, 1875, people were living in stables or grim industrial tenements; Villaggio Leumann became Italy's first example of a terraced housing development. For the workers, this was revolutionary.
Facilities were installed specifically for the mill's workforce, which reached 3,000 employees at the village's peak, including a school, a boarding house for young women, an infirmary, a church, a grocery store, a post office, and a cinema. Leumann was ahead of his time: he established a pension fund, introduced a sick-leave scheme, set a minimum age for factory work, and even set aside money to help the school's most talented students continue their education. A unique feature of the town is that it has remained unchanged since 1912, surviving both World Wars and the urban sprawl that now surrounds the factory village.
Even after the factory closed, the residents, who had lived and worked there for generations and shared a relationship of direct trust with the Leumann family, organized a protest and succeeded in having the homes designated as a historic landmark.
Today, they are public housing units owned by the municipality. Despite the transfer of ownership, the village was saved.