Crespi d'Adda

Crespi d'Adda
Frazione
The town's company-built school, church and employee houses
Crespi d'Adda Location of Crespi d'Adda in Italy
Coordinates: 45°35′48″N 9°32′10″E / 45.59667°N 9.53611°E / 45.59667; 9.53611Coordinates: 45°35′48″N 9°32′10″E / 45.59667°N 9.53611°E / 45.59667; 9.53611
Country	Italy
Region	Lombardy
Province	Bergamo (BG)
Comune	Capriate San Gervasio
Elevation	465 m (1,526 ft)
Population (2011)
• Total	397
Demonym(s)	Casalesi
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	84070
Dialing code	(+39) 0974
Patron saint	Saint Maurus
Website	Official website
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Criteria	Cultural: (iv), (v)
Reference	730
Inscription	1995 (19th Session)
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Crespi d'Adda is a northern Italian village and hamlet (frazione) of Capriate San Gervasio, a municipality in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy. It is a historic settlement and an outstanding example of the 19th and early 20th-century "company towns" built in Europe and North America by enlightened industrialists to meet the workers' needs. The site is still intact and is partly used for industrial purposes, although changing economic and social conditions now threaten its survival. Since 1995 it has been on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites.

In 1869 Cristoforo Benigno Crespi, a textile manufacturer from Busto Arsizio (Varese), bought the 1 km valley between the rivers Brembo and Adda, to the south of Capriate, with the intention of installing a cotton mill on the banks of the Adda.

Cristoforo Crespi introduced the most modern spinning, weaving and finishing processes in his Cotton Mill. The Hydroelectric power plant in Trezzo, on the Adda river just a few kilometers upwards, was built up around 1906 for the manufacturer Cristoforo Benigno Crespi. The settlement which was built in 1878 next to the cotton-mill was a village, a residential area provided with social services such as a clinic, a school building, a theatre, a cemetery, a wash-house and a church.