The Fabbrica Alta is an imposing factory, orthogonally connected to the representative Lanificio, of great monumental, social and urban significance in the territorial context of the second half of the 19th century. The Fabbrica Alta is the emblem of the Venetian industrial heritage and is a clear demonstration of the early Italian industrial development. It was designed in 1861 during the stay in Schio of the Belgian architect Auguste Vivroux according to the European multi-storey model and was equipped with modern technologies and machinery. The building was commissioned by Alessandro Rossi, is 80 m long, over 13 m wide and has five floors plus a basement and attic; it also features 330 windows, 52 dormers, and a tall quadrangular chimney with an elegant pediment. Each floor houses immense halls divided into three spans by 125 cast iron columns, each of which hosted a different phase of the wool processing. The driving force for the operation of the machinery was produced, before the advent of electric energy, by a steam engine imported from England.
The material used for construction is mainly brick and stone sourced from the local area.
Note the heads of the iron joists of the floors in the shape of small rosettes, the different use of terracotta around the windows, the floor bands, and the rhomboidal motif of the attic frieze. Between 1966 and 1967 the building was decommissioned, transferring the production cycle to the new warehouses of the Schio industrial zone, while the administrative functions of the Company remained for a few more decades.
Since 2013, the building has been publicly owned.
Photo: archive of the Municipality of Schio.
