The architectonic complex today is the fulcrum of great interest and over the last years the local institutions have tried to also call the attention of public and private institutions to this regard. In fact, in 2012 the Chamber of Commerce of Monza and Brianza commissioned the Polytechnical Institute of Milan and the Bocconi University in Milan to finalize a study to draft a “strategic project of territorial marketing for economic/real estate investors.” The priority of the project indicated as the priority of the Eurpoean “Health and demographic ageing” as a potential for the regeneration plans of the area, in view of economic development and welfare.
The project proposed by the Milanese universities for the area which was not rich in real estate projects, consisted in transforming it with:
– a scientific park for neuroscience studies with specialization in the prevention and care of neurodegenerative pathologies and other mental disease related to ageing;
– a multidisciplinary facility that is able to ensure a strict relationship between basic studies, clinical activities and care of degenerative pathologies, and social impact;
– park for the treatment of Alzheimer’s with ad hoc facilities: homes, gardens, day centres and temporary centers.
The study, combined with the variables that arose as a reference point for the assessment of the competitiveness of an area with the specific features of the province of Monza and Brianza and expressing estimations of the level of attractiveness of the territory that could become once again competitive, revealed however some evident critical factors. Among the indicators that evidence the bigger issues, was that of the limiting conditions of the “town system:” the negative factors in fact derived from the inefficiency of the public administration, the financial and legal system as well as the tax pressure, the set of basic infrastructures that were often insufficient not only in terms of buildings, services, offer of qualified personnel, mostly conditioned by the cost of employment.” In further detail, according to the single analysis sheets of the areas under study (former hospital San Gerardo of Monza, hospital Civile of Vimercate and asylum of Limbiate) the former asylum complex seemed to lack some vital conditions compared to the average provincial facilities, in its basic structure, and technologically advanced features and quality of life. Only the “availability and quality of the real estate market of Limbiate revealed to be superior to that of the other sites, even if it still was below some aspects found in the average provincial structures.
The data presented in this survey were however to be reconsidered in function of the recent decision of the Lombardia Region and the Salvini Hospital of Garbagnate to give two pavilions of the former asylum complex in order to build structures that comply with the disuse of the OPG (judicial asylums). This decision could not have left the real estate market of the zone indifferent, especially with the intervention projects of the same former asylum area. The Mombello (Limbiate) headquarters in fact is now subject of a specific project approved by the Lombardy Region with Resolution n. X/122 approved in the session of the Provincial Council of 14 May 2013, that provided for the renovation of two pavilions (Ronzoni and Forlanini) in the framework of the “Program for the building of extra-hospital care structures to replace the judicial asylums pursuant l.17.02.2012, n.9 art. 3ter as amended by ministerial decree 28-12-2008”.
A different project instead refers to that of the municipal administration, which took as model the Denokinn: the Basque center for Social and Industrial innovation, which had the aim of “providing an innovative eco system for the institutional, economic and social leaders that target the construction of new economic development initiatives, together with welfare objectives.”The Planning Document of the P.G.T. of the Municipality of Limbiate instead, though identifying the various urban transformation areas within the territory, which, on the basis of the targets, will be subjected to requalification and development interventions, not explicitly providing any transformation plan for the said area, in which the maximum S.L.P. value is still negotiable.
Whatever the project the owner party and the institutions will decide to create on this former asylum complex, in order to actuate a real project for the recovery and valorisation of its architectonic and natural heritage, we need to concretely recognise the role Mombello played within the framework of psychiatric care and ensure the physical recovery of those areas in memory of society and the importance of the site, and fully instate its role in scientific research in the field of psychic disorders and the qualitative value of its architectures.