One hundred years ago the death of Ottone Bacaredda, the legendary mayor of Cagliari, who projected the city into a new age. First citizen, albeit with some interruptions, from 1889 to 1921. One of the symbols of that period is the Town Hall, made of pietra forte (light limestone), the symbol, not only political, of the new season.
"The transfer of the seat of the Palazzo di Città, from the Castle to the current Via Roma, near the port and the railway station, was not only a response to the need to have a larger and more functional building but, also and above all, it represents an ideological choice ".
The new seat of the Town Hall. From the building in the Castello district to the building a few meters from the port. Why is it decided to change location?
"It is the passing of the baton from the Cagliari d ' ancien régime , perched in the Castle, seat of the nobility and the feudal aristocracy, to the bourgeois Cagliari, well interpreted by the dynamism of the Marina and Stampace low districts, where the companies were based and they carried out commercial traffic ".
What is Bacaredda's role?
“The need to acquire a new headquarters, adequate to the increased administrative functions and the economic role assumed by the city, arose in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century. In 1880 a special commission was appointed to identify the area: the work of the commissioners was not without contrasts and lasted over time. The decisive impulse was given by Ottone Bacaredda who, from November 1889 until December 26, 1921 (the day of his death), almost continuously, held the office of mayor of Cagliari. In fact, the area was chosen by the administration headed by Bacaredda who then, with a council resolution of 14 December 1896, announced the national competition for the project ".
The sovereigns Umberto I and Margherita di Savoia participate in the ceremony for the laying of the first stone, a very solemn moment.
“The new Palazzo Civico (in my opinion together with the Bastion of Saint Remy) represents one of the most interesting symbols of what we could define as“ the age of Bacaredda ”or the beautiful epoque of Cagliari. The construction of the Town Hall was an event of particular importance. It is no coincidence that, on April 14, 1899, it was the sovereign Umberto I, who arrived in the city with his wife, Queen Margherita of Savoy, who laid the first stone of the building. It is necessary to rediscover the many moments of Bacaredda's age and that mayor-myth to which the City Council decided to name the Town Hall on Via Roma a few days ago ”.