FORGOTTEN ARCHITECTURE

Giulio Minoletti, Swimming Pool at Villa Tagliabue, Monza, 1950–51 🐬 Designed in the park of the Tagliabue family’s villa, Minoletti’s forty-metre pool transformed domestic leisure into a carefully staged environment. Its irregular, lake-like basin was lined with blue glass mosaic and completed by a sculptural diving board, an underwater artwork by Antonia Tomasini, and a sunken dance floor whose portholes opened directly onto the water.
I have recently discovered that Lucio Fontana’s 3.5-metre red-glazed ceramic “Dolphin”, installed for the pool’s inauguration in 1951, was removed in 2015 and sent to Austria for auction. After a decade-long legal dispute, Italy’s Council of State ruled that the sculpture was an integral architectural element of the complex. On 21 April 2026, the “Dolphin” was finally returned to the pool. Photo credits: Archivio Storico Comunale, Monza; Fondo Giulio Minoletti. Università della Svizzera Italiana, Fondazione Archivio del Moderno, Mendrisio.