The current Public Library is hosted in a former traditional Campidanese house, one of the most beautiful houses in the town of Selargius. It’s located in via Santa Olimpia and named after the Putzu family, who lived in the property for about a century. A legal document dated 1889 was very useful to obtain information about the history of the house. It mentions a donation of some parcels of land and this house still in construction by the head of the family Efisio Luigi to his son Pietro, as a wedding gift for the marriage of Pietro with his wife Annetta Frau celebrated on January 2 1892. Pietro and Annetta had eight children and after their death, two of the children, Igino and Annunziata, inherited the house and lived here together until the end of 1980s when they ultimately moved to Cagliari. The house remained vacant for many years and was purchased by the town of Selargius in 2003 and converted into the current public library.

The house was built with the traditional Sardinian ladiri, a mudbrick pressed with natural straw material and sundried. The exterior walls were protected by mud plaster and were quite thick, the interiors were finished with plaster and some painted with frescos. The roof was made of wood and straw. In addition to the main building and its courtyard, there was also a more rustic yard for the head farmer and another area with the staff rooms and a vegetable garden.

There were several rooms in the main house, including a covered rustic space used as a stable and later as a car garage, a water well, an oven and a large cellar with a roof reinforced with a concrete beam in 1920, possibly the first concrete structure in Selargius.

In the rustic courtyard there was a storage area for tools, a second water well, a shelter for domestic animals, a storage for hay and grass, a wine cellar, a stable for the donkey and two garages for farm tools and a motorized wheat threshing.

The wall layout is the only surviving part of the original building, but we have a good documentation of how the house looked like from the historical photos part of the exhibition “Casa Putzu: history of a XIX century mansion” which can be visited in the public library gallery.