QUESTURA DI COMO, Como, Przewodnik dla zwiedzających i co robić w okolicy

The Questura di Como is the city's police headquarters, on Viale Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Como, northern Italy. It is a 20th-century public building, and it stands in a city that is well known for the rationalist architecture of Giuseppe Terragni and his contemporaries. It is a working institution rather than a museum, so it is a place to look at from the street.

The story behind it

Como sits at the southwestern tip of Lake Como, and people lived here long before the Romans founded their town. The Orobii, a pre-Roman people, are traditionally linked with the area. Over the centuries the city grew into a centre of silk production and, today, one of Lombardy's best-known lake destinations.

The route creators connect this building with Giuseppe Terragni, Como's most celebrated architect, and with the modernist movement of the 1920s and 1930s. Terragni was a founding member of Gruppo 7, a group of young Italian architects formed in 1926 who looked to modern European design, including the work of Gropius and Le Corbusier. His best-known work in Como is the Casa del Fascio, now called Palazzo Terragni. Whatever the exact authorship of the Questura, the buildings of this period give this part of Como a very different character from the medieval old town.

What to look for

• The overall form of the building: plain, strongly geometric and built to project authority, which is typical of public architecture from the early 20th century.
• The details of the façade, where sculpted or carved elements are worth a slow look from across the street.
• The contrast between this formal civic architecture and the softer, older streets and lake scenery that are only a short walk away.
• The wide, tree-lined feel of Viale Roosevelt, which is quite unlike the narrow lanes of the historic centre.

Tips for your visit

• Plan on five to ten minutes. This is a stop for looking at the exterior, not a visit with an interior.
• The building is an active police headquarters, so do not expect to go inside, and be discreet if you take photos.
• Soft morning or late afternoon light shows off the façade best, and the street is calmer outside rush hour.
• Combine it with a walk toward the lakefront and the old town, and check current opening hours for any museum or church you add along the way.

See it on a quest

The Como Heist: Catch the Phantom Thief is a good way to see this building in context. You reach the Questura on foot as one stop of a longer route through Como, the app tells you about each place as you arrive, and you solve a puzzle based on what is in front of you. With a heist theme, a police headquarters is a fitting place to pause. One ticket covers the whole group, and you can start whenever you like with no guide and no set time.