Palazzo delle Paure, Lecco

Palazzo delle Paure in Lecco, Italy, is a civic building whose present form dates to the early twentieth century and was executed in an eclectic neo‑medieval style. The site originally held the palazzo della Dogana, the customs house erected in 1905; that structure was taken down in 1916 and replaced by the building that stands today. Because of the administrative functions it hosted, the complex acquired the local name “delle Paure” while it served as a centre for fiscal and customs offices.

From its reconstruction after 1916 the palace functioned as the city’s offices for finance and land records. The building housed the Intendency of Finance, the cadastre, and the customs office, and it continued in those administrative roles through 1964. The concentration of those state services at this address is the reason the municipal population associated the palace with the nickname that persisted into later decades.

Alongside the main block, a contiguous porticoed structure had been raised in 1902 to contain the Chamber of Commerce. That Chamber of Commerce was later suppressed by the Fascist government in the interwar period, and the institution was moved to Palazzo Falck in 2004. The complex also served the city’s educational needs for several years when it was used as a school immediately prior to its conversion to cultural use.

A comprehensive renovation culminated in the reopening of the building as a museum on 6 October 2012. On that day the second floor began operating as the graphics, photography and contemporary art section of the Municipal Gallery, incorporating works transferred from the Municipal Gallery that had been established at Villa Manzoni in 1983. Among the artists whose works moved into the palace are local painters Tino Stefanoni and Alfredo Chiappori, painters of broader national interest Enrico Castellani and Enrico Baj, and the sculptors Alik Cavaliere and Giò Pomodoro. The ground floor has been used for rotating exhibitions, including a show devoted to Pablo Picasso in 2014.

Since 2014 the building has accommodated the Lecco tourist information and reception office. From 26 June 2016 the third floor opened as the Lecco Alpine Observatory, a permanent exhibition space focused on the mountain and on the history of mountaineering, created through institutional and territorial collaboration to present the achievements of local alpinists.