This is La Fornace Penna, an intriguing industrial archaeological monument located in the Pisciotto district of Sampieri, a charming seaside village in the municipality of Scicli, Sicily, it's literally 10 metres back from the water.
This impressive old brick factory was built between 1909 and 1912, designed by the engineer Ignazio Emmolo with the support of Baron Guglielmo Penna. It was constructed near the sea on the limestone cliffs of Punta Pisciotto, taking advantage of the local clay quarry just 200 meters away and the nearby railway for transporting the bricks.
It's obviously abandoned now and in a state of decay, the ruins of Fornace Penna look like some sort of roman temple which has fallen apart, but really it's more of a monument to industry.
The factory was quite advanced for its time, equipped with a Hoffmann kiln with sixteen chambers arranged in a ring. It produced different types of bricks and roofing tiles, churning out up to ten thousand pieces a day. These bricks were exported widely, especially to Mediterranean countries such as Malta and Libya. Notably, many buildings in Tripoli were built using bricks from Fornace Penna following the war of 1911. The factory operated seasonally from May to September, employing around a hundred young workers mostly aged 16 to 18. The site had a striking architectural design resembling a basilica more than a factory, which earned it the nickname "a secular basilica by the sea" by art critic Vittorio Sgarbi.
Tragically, on the night of January 26, 1924, the factory was destroyed by a deliberate arson fire and was never rebuilt. There are theories about political motives behind the fire, with some blaming socialists and others suspecting internal fascist conflicts. Today, La Fornace Penna remains as strange ruin right by the sea, weathered by the elements but still majestic.
It's a very cool place to see, and given it's just up the road from a pretty good swimming beach well worth a day trip.
