INAIL

The strangest thread in the tale of INAIL Pisa is not its purpose or its rationalist façade, but the way it began: a postwar reweaving of a building that was drafted in 1940, shifted through conflict, and finally repurposed in 1949 to serve workers’ safety. This is a palace whose exterior whispers of a grand prewar rationalism, yet its bones carry a later, practical life: a four-storey block that rose from a 20,000 cubic meter volume, set on a corner where Via del Giardino meets Via Giovanni Di Simone, and quietly transformed into offices, a medical center, and apartments. The project’s origin lies in the late 1930s reshaping of this San Francesco district.

The chosen plot, owned by the Leoncini Labindo family, was part of a sweeping clearance program in 1938 designed to remove “malsane” housing. In 1939, the site was acquired by the INFAIL—the Istituto Nazionale Fascista per l’Assicurazione contro gli Infortuni sul Lavoro. The building’s design came next, drafted in 1940 by the architect Luigi Giulini of INFAIL’s Technical Office, with Sabatini listed as the designer.

The city’s municipal deliberation on April 19, 1940, granted the construction license (deliberation n° 4400).