The Former Post Office Building of Mestre Station

Mestre (Venice), Viale Stazione / Piazzale Favretti · reinforced concrete, Post Office technical department · listed as brutalist architecture by the regional plan

The Former Post Office Building of Mestre Station — a Brutalist Block Waiting for Its Future

Beside the railway station of Mestre stands an empty concrete building with long bands of windows and graffiti on its base. It was the sorting centre of the Italian Post; it has been sold, resold and planned as a hotel, a hostel and a tower, and the regional plan now protects it as an example of brutalism.

At a glance

The former Palazzo delle Poste of Mestre stands next to the railway station, between Viale Stazione and the tracks, on the square that the newspapers call Piazzale Favretti after the company that owned it. It is a reinforced concrete building designed by the technical office of the Post Office, with no architect’s name attached, and it is the local example of the current the Veneto regional plan calls brutalism. The Post left it; the Immobiliare Favretti sold it in 2017 to the company of Michael Kluge, Stazione di Mestre srl, for about six million euros, and since then it has been the object of plans for a hotel of 220 rooms, a hostel of 600 beds and a tower with shops at the base, inside the agreement for the new station signed in December 2018. In the meantime it stands empty.

Key facts

Where: next to Venezia Mestre station, on the station square
Built: in reinforced concrete, by the technical department of the Italian Post Office; no named architect
Style: described by the regional territorial plan (PTRC) as brutalist architecture, with a constraint on demolition and change of use that the owners contested before the regional court
Owners: Immobiliare Favretti; sold in 2017 to Stazione di Mestre srl (Michael Kluge) for about €6 million; put up for sale again with its building rights
Plans: a 220-room hotel for a Spanish group; a 600-bed hostel; a tower looking onto the square and the tracks, with shops on the ground floor, designed by Studio Sandro Bisà
Agreement: programme agreement of December 2018 between the city, the State Railways and the other parties, ratified by the council in July 2019
Note: the contributor reports an inauguration on 10 August 1965; we have not found a second source for the date and do not give it as a fact
GPS: 45.48215, 12.23355 · Open in Google Maps

History

The building belongs to the generation of post-war public works around the station of Mestre, when the mainland of Venice grew into a city of its own. It worked as the postal centre of the station until the Post moved its offices to Via Einaudi. Left empty, it became a canvas for graffiti and, for a while, the deposit of the city’s bike-sharing fleet.

Its future has been argued over for years: the first owners wanted a hotel, the regional plan listed it as brutalist architecture and blocked demolition and change of use, the owners went to court, and the new owner, after the agreement on the station of December 2018, planned a hostel in a tower. In 2026 the newspaper reported that the project was for sale again. The photographs show the building as it is now.

What you see

A long three-storey block of raw concrete and brick, with continuous bands of windows on the upper floors, deep horizontal balconies and a flat roof with vegetation growing from it; the base is covered with graffiti and the ground floor has tall industrial windows. The photographs were taken from the station footbridge and from the square, with the tracks on one side and the bus stops on the other.

Nearby

Mestre

Gallery

The front of the concrete building seen from above with its bands of windows and graffiti at street level, cars and a van on the road — The front on the square from the footbridge. Photo: Stefano Vigolo.

Corner view of the concrete block with its deep balconies, graffiti and people waiting at a bus stop below — The corner towards the station, with the graffiti and the bus stop. Photo: Stefano Vigolo.

The long concrete building seen from the square with its window bands and balconies, a white van and parked cars in front — The building from the square, under a blue sky. Photo: Stefano Vigolo.

Sources

La Nuova Venezia — Mestre, l’ex palazzo delle Poste torna in vendita: the brutalist building on Viale Stazione, the sale of 2017 to Michael Kluge’s Stazione di Mestre srl for about six million, the resale, the hostel of 600 beds, the tower with shops, Studio Sandro Bisà, the agreement of December 2018 and July 2019
La Nuova Venezia — «Esterrefatti dal vincolo imposto dal Ptrc»: the regional plan’s listing as brutalist architecture, the ban on demolition and change of use, the appeal of Immobiliare Favretti to the TAR, the reinforced concrete building by the Post Office technical department, the 220-room hotel project, the bike-sharing deposit

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