The ships

It was June 28, 1934 when, in just nine months of construction, the Architectural Complex of Le Navi (The Ships) was built and inaugurated.
This was the marine colony “XXVIII Ottobre”, for the children of Italians abroad, which now houses the Aquarium of Cattolica.
The project and its realization were given to the Roman engineer Clemente Busiri Vici who was one of the most significant among the various examples of Futurist architecture.
The central core of the work, drawn up in 1933, is rigidly symmetrical and includes five buildings inspired by the aeronaval morphology, i.e. the world of Ships, Airplanes, Seaplanes, Littorine and Submarines. Visible from both Land and Sea, the Building Complex, nicknamed “Le Navi”, took the imposing shape of a Naval Flotilla. Since 2000, thanks to a scrupulous conservative restoration that has maintained the rationalist characteristics without disfiguring the original project, it has been completely renovated, becoming one of the largest Marine Parks in Italy.