- History
- Promotion
- Location
Chimney, Ex-Ferrarese Agricultural Sugar Refinery
Photo from the Unife E-Learning and Multimedia Services Office
The Ex-Ferrarese Agricultural Sugar Refinery is an important example of the development of architectural structures from industrial heritage. The construction of the main body of the factory dates from 1900 and was completed in only nine months.
The structure shows the typical characteristics of industrial buildings: serialism and regularity in the arrangement of the structural elements, large dimensions, and the use of iron and cement.
Thearchitectural plan of the main building follows the layout of an industrial warehouse, with large windows. The inside initially had two floors, and only after reconstruction following air strikes during the Second World War was an additional floor added, which is still present today.
The complex is located on the right bank of the Po di Volano River, and this position was important for the availability of water needed for sugar production; the waterway was later replaced by the railway as infrastructure to support industrial operations.
The sugar refinery was decommissioned in 1968. In the 1980s, the Ferrara City Council had a project drawn up to convert the structure into an exhibition space, which was never implemented.
In the early 1960s, when it was granted in use to the university, the ex-sugar refinery was converted into a university building, initially for the Faculty of Engineering (1995), initiating the transformation of an area that was by then abandoned on the outskirts of the city, into a centre for higher education and research: the present day Science and Technology Hub.
The building houses the Science and Technology Library , which preserves the ancient library collections on Earth Sciences and Physics.
To find out more
Leonhart Fuchs, De historia stirpium commentarii insignes, Basel, Michael Isengrin, 1542 (Recreation of the illustration). Historical Collection of the Literature and Philosophy Library
This location is part of the permanent cultural tour Stories of books and palaces. Tours of the Unife libraries from the University Library System.(Tour guide.pdf)
Guided tours
June 29 2024: guided tour by students of the University of Ferrara and library staff as part of the project Other Stories of Books and Palaces. New Perspectives on Unife's Cultural Heritage organized by the University Library System.
28 October 2018 - Stories of books and palaces. Inauguration of the tour with the opening of the locations. The students from the 4th year of the "A. Roiti" Science-specialist High School in Ferrara, along with representatives from the University Library System and Museum System, guided visitors around the palaces of the university, libraries and historical collections.
Virtual Tours
Audiovisual
The warehouse-library repository
Science and Technology Library
Photo from the Unife E-Learning and Multimedia Services Office
Ex-Ferrarese Agricultural Sugar Refinery
Science and Technology Hub
Via Saragat, 1
44121 Ferrara
Accessibility
Consult the map of the ground floor (Units L, Q, R, S, O - Cathedral) and for more information, visit the page for Accessibility of buildings.