Villa Durante

The restoration project for the important Villa of the late XIX century has been lead with great respect to the existing building but, at the same time, with a clear and remarkable contemporary apporach in the parts already destroyed.
First of all a deep study of the history of the building and a detailed survey has been carried on. After that all the elements has been clear the project has been started. The alteration work has been reduced to a bare minimum, and working around transparency and lightness to bring its spaces back into function: as in the glazed lift. The key features of this design approach were the feeling of vertical permeability accentuated by the space, allowing introspections between one level and another, the possibility of using the bathroom windows as light sources, as was the case back in the original 1930s’ design, and an exploiting of the stylistic value of technology. The use of structural glass mounted on vertical steel bearing rods that turned the lift shaft into a large glass section running right through the property was vital for achieving these design intentions.
The most elaborate and important part of the works involved the scientifically rigorous restoration of the inside and outside decorations. The most delicate and tricky work was bringing to light two frescoes that had been covered with cementite in the 1960s.
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This project has received the European Union Award For Cultural Heritage (Europa Nostra) diploma in 2004
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