Casa Bianchi at Selva di Ghiffa, Ghiffa

project
1961 - 1963
construction
1961 - 1963
client

Famiglia Bianchi

manufacturing technology

Windows: wood

Façade: glazed white plaster

Roof: pitched, with copper sheeting

description
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The house - a contemporary interpretation of the building type of many villas along Lake Maggiore - is located in the hamlet of Selva a Ghiffa (Verbania); it stands on a terraced area facing the lakeside, below the level of the access road.

The curbed walls of its L-shaped plan delimit several of the outer and inner areas of the house (e.g., the staircase); only the bedrooms face the houses in the nearby hamlet.

The main horizontal façade facing the lake is dynamized by a spacious wooden terrace, and wood has also been used for all the screening devices in front of the windows.

Since Magistretti wanted to 'anchor' the house to its surroundings, a modest group of single-family houses, he chose very simple materials (e.g., glazed white plaster for the façades), with one exception: the copper sheeting on the single pitched roof which, just where the embankment juts out over the water, creates a barrel vault.

In his drawings of the interior Magistretti focused in particular on the fireplace, the protagonist of many of the sketches housed in the archive.

bibliography

F. Irace, V. Pasca, Vico Magistretti, architetto e designer, Milano 1999, p. 66

project profile by Maria Manuela Leoni
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