Town hall of Pieve del Grappa

The municipal building was constructed at the end of the 19th century with the function of hosting male drawing schools, the town hall, and a theater hall. In 1875, based on a design by engineer Antonio Zardo, the idea of a triple concept in a single building was developed, characterized by an architecture that was not particularly ambitious but functional. The eastern part, intended to house the municipal offices, would have housed the secretariat and archive on the ground floor, and the mayor’s office and registry office on the first floor. The western part housed the school after, with the revitalization of finances thanks to the Sartori Canova Legacy, funds were allocated to education: in the decades at the end of the century, drawing, agricultural, weaving, and stonemason schools were established. The central part, visually more important also on the prospective background of the building, was to be a spacious atrium through which to access the contiguous theater hall; above it, a large multi-purpose hall hosted the schools and the town hall. According to the description, the theater hall would have had dimensions of 10 and a half meters in width and 18 meters in depth, with a large stage with a separate entrance and eight dressing rooms. The loggias located upstairs would have been accessed from the town hall stairs themselves. The long facade with thirteen openings is vertically punctuated by the relief movement of the surfaces, giving greater authority to the central part with the staircases and ground-floor entrances; the long and regular row of windows on the first floor, some surmounted by light frames, contains four relief medallions depicting Dante, Canova, Alfieri, and Metastasio. The pediment above, rectangular and with the frieze, the coat of arms of Crespano, and some allegorical figures, ideally links back to that of Caffè Canova, a primitive and also unrealized project for a municipal theater.