Appeal to Online Defense by an "elderly Lady" ...

04/01/18

Dear Director, I would like to write to you to ask for your help.

I was born in 1936 in a period of splendor and luster for our poor Italy. I have given shelter and assistance to all those who pass through and who have needed it, whether they were Italian or foreign, without making any distinction. Everyone who went out thanked me for hosting them.
I have always been considered indispensable because without me it would have been very difficult to carry out all the operations absolutely necessary to make them fly safely.

The years have passed quickly, I have 81 years but I still have sinuous curves that look upwards, right where I helped bring back all those I gave shelter to.
When I was born, the average "stature" was not what it is today, today they are almost all taller and although I am not really short, I am no longer able to host as in the past. Today other means find shelter and assistance inside me, such as buses that transport passengers from the terminal to the planes.
This year (this is the reason for my letter) they want to retire me by replacing me with a younger and higher one.

I am the famous hangar at Linate airport, there are those who remind me when an advertisement for a well-known liqueur and then, subsequently, for a well-known brand of clothes dominated my head.

They want to demolish me! Possible that there is no way to preserve me as "historical good" ?!
I can still be useful. Inside me, on the sides, there are two plates of the company that built me: the Breda.

I hope someone has respect for the old but still sprightly lady I am. We are the usual ones, in Italy there is no culture of preservation of the aeronautical historical heritage (except for more unique than rare cases), especially if it refers to the period of the Fascist period which - let me say it - has recently been positively re-evaluated especially with regard to works carried out: cities, roads, stations, reclamation and even airports such as Linate!

I remember that before the airport was located in Taliedo and was a few hundred meters from the current airport. The airfield (it was a lawn) ran along via Mecenate, of the airport only the ruins of the Caproni factories remain to demonstrate the splendor of the past.

My designer and dad was Eng. Arturo Danusso, defined as “brilliant and forgotten pioneer of seismic engineering”. Danusso contributed significantly to the structural design of some of the key works of post-war Milan, such as the Galfa Tower, the Velasca Tower and the Pirelli Skyscraper. 
When he designed me, he certainly didn't think that, one day, someone would have the courage to demolish me!

Renato Cortelletti

 

Dear Madam, if you were born in the twenty years there is little to do these days: it will have to be replaced with something new, probably less durable, certainly more expensive.

I hope readers' comments will console her. I can not do more than share his appeal with them.

Andrea Cucco

(photo: Apostolo archive / author)