VILLA ON THE COMO LAKE SHORE – ART AND NATURE
MINIMAL ELEGANCE
Project signed by Arch. Stephane Bones and Massimiliano Nutricati, interiors managed by Dario Turani

"In a villa on Lake Como a large magnolia crosses the floors and becomes the unprecedented trait d'union between the various rooms of this residence characterized by a single refinement. Five floors in which original combinations of materials are enhanced, in a skilful play of affinities and contrasts."

The first thing that strikes you about this villa on the Lario is the view of the lake, splendid, wide, generous. A view that embraces from the large terrace overlooked by the living room and kitchen. The second thing that captures attention are the materials, used in a skilful way to create a house rich in textures, contrasts, different physiognomies that come together and stand out from each other, giving life to a series of environments characterized by different personalities. On each level of the house, an early 20th century villa spread over five floors, particular solutions make each room unique. A variety that is repeated both horizontally, in the long perspectives of rooms crowned by arches and vaults, and vertically, with always new solutions.

"There are five floors, each measuring 200 square meters," explain architects Massimiliano Nutricati and Dario Turani, who signed and supervised the project.
"The common thread throughout the villa is minimal elegance. The soul of the house is always the same on every floor: neutral, clear and quiet'.
It became necessary to carry out many renovation works. "We had to gut the whole house, sometimes we only kept the perimeter walls and the first attic," add Nutricati and Turani. But such a massive intervention made it possible to create precise stylistic choices, creating very coherent and characterized environments, naturally referring to the original physiognomy. 

"For example, for some floors the Venetian sowing was restored, while in others the Lombard terracotta originating from the 18th century. Instead, the walls and ceilings on each floor are made of marmorino and the bathrooms are made of resin.”.
The personality of the materials is then accompanied by that of nature, which is forcefully perceived outside, with the splendid lake landscape, but also inside, where a large magnolia climbs through the floors and ceilings of the villa, from the basement to the side floor of the road.

Although it is very present, nature has not influenced the choices of the designers, who indeed in some environments have preferred to enhance the contrasts between the linearity of the furnishings and the rigor of the decorations and colours. And this same play of contrasts in some rooms is replicated in another way with the works of art.
Just as they were able to enhance the magnolia, the architects managed to give a decisive presence to the comparison between the sculptures and the formal cleanliness of the rooms, which reinterpret in a contemporary key the elegance of the houses furnished by the protagonists of the modern movement.

An example of this is a living room in which the Barcelona armchairs by Mies Van de Rohe rest on the terrazzo floor, no less classic than the sculpture that dominates the back of the room. Some walls and ceilings with exposed bricks or stones dilute this authority of noble architectural origins, which seem to transgress this desire for architectural rigor, but are part of an overall design where order and an apparent disorder dialogue successfully and enhance each other.