Art Nouveau Villas - Sarnico

In Sarnico, it is possible to admire an original nucleus of Art Nouveau buildings designed by the architect Giuseppe Sommaruga, who left some of the finest products of his art in this small lakeside town and did not fail to influence the public and private decoration of the local architecture.

Giuseppe Sommaruga arrived in Sarnico for the first time in 1907, thanks to the foresight and the conspicuous economic possibilities of the Faccanoni family, for the transformation of the old spinning mill in via Orgnieri into an Art Nouveau villa. The plan of the villa and its facade recall the Florentine villas of the fifteenth century. The floral decorations on ribbons that cross the building and follow the curvature of the arches are, instead, typical of Liberty. The external wrought iron fence pursues, with extreme coherence, the free and fluttering motifs of the "new art", the result of the collaboration with the blacksmith Alessandro Mazzucotelli, a true genius of wrought iron, who accompanied the architect during almost all of his professional experience. Likewise, the interior of the Pietro Faccanoni villa is decorated and furnished with fine boiserie and built-in furniture, the result of the ingenuity of the cabinetmaker Eugenio Quarti. The ceilings are decorated in the technique of graffiti cement in the form of floral motifs.

Also in 1907, Sommaruga began the construction of Giuseppe Faccanoni's villa. This is probably the real masterpiece of the artist in Sarnico and, at the same time, one of the highest achievements of his entire career. Located at number 56 of via Vittorio Veneto, the villa is surrounded by a suggestive and large garden. Distributed over two floors, enriched with attics, terraces, bay windows (almost Renaissance choir lofts) and a tower, the building has the main entrance on the rounded corner overlooking the lake. Different types of stones cover the structure and animate the irregular layout of the villa, decorated, also in this case, with terracotta and majolica bands. A series of sculpted figures of more or less recognizable animals (a sort of bestiary with a medieval taste) populates this "bachelor cottage". The symbolic reference to the structure of a ship obeys a precise intention and a solid complicity between architect and client. The temptation of an esoteric reading is easy and immediate. The visitor finds himself immersed in an almost magical atmosphere and the sense of bewilderment pervades the disoriented guest and the constant search for a "real" entrance. The entrance gate, in wrought iron, is spectacular: in addition to the usual ribbons, the taste for natural representation is found through the depiction of a sample of flowers and unwary insects captured by strange cobwebs.

Finally, at number 5 of Via Predore is the imposing building of Villa Luigi Faccanoni, today Villa Surre. The motifs of the previous villas are here magnified out of all proportion. The scenic apparatus becomes triumphal, and the high "Medici" tower stands out in a dominating position over the nearby lake. The decorations also take on the "non-colour" of gold and the vastness of the spaces forces one to look up.