Two symbols of Como, one centuries old and the other ultra-modern, cannot fail to catch the eye of anyone passing along the lakefront: the breakwater, built in 1870, and the monument “The Life Electric” by star architect Daniel Libeskind, inaugurated in 2015 at the center of the roundabout that seals the breakwater itself. In the 19th century, when the ancient port of Como was filled in to make way for Piazza Cavour, and a new landing stage for steamboats was built opposite it, it became necessary to construct a barrier to protect the coast from the waves. Until 1965, the year in which the lakeside railway freight yard at Giardini a Lago was decommissioned, the dam was not connected to the mainland. Today, with its 340 meters stretching across the first basin of the lake, it represents the most romantic walk one can take in the city. It became even more so when the association “Amici di Como,” on the occasion of Expo 2015, commissioned Libeskind to create a monument dedicated to Alessandro Volta for the 260th anniversary of his birth. The American starchitect, much like she did when developing the master plan for Ground Zero in New York, envisioned a structure capable of connecting the city’s memory with its future, under the sign of energy. The idea that inspired “The Life Electric” is the tension generated between the two poles of a battery, Volta’s great gift to humanity. The monument stands approximately 14 meters tall and is composed of tempered steel sinusoids that echo the initials of the Como-born inventor (A.V.), creating a mirror effect that immerses the installation in the surrounding space. The work is ideally connected to two other important monuments dedicated to Volta, built in 1927: the lighthouse at the summit of Mount Brunate and the nearby Tempio Voltiano.
