Casa Cassina, Carimate
Elena Balsari Berrone (progettista del verde)
Cassina, Cesare
Roof: copper sheet pitched roof
Load-bearing structure: load-bearing walls
Façade: glazed white plaster
Windows: wood
The villa, part of the allotment plan of the Golf Club Carimate, was commissioned by Cesare Carimate, owner of the homonymous furnishing company with which Magistretti had already established a successful, decades-long collaboration. The company manufactured most of the original furnishings in the house designed by the architect, however most of these furnishings have been removed given the house's state of partial neglect (confirmed by an on-site inspection in 2015).
The two-floor, square plan house stands on a hillside: the living room is on the upper floor - the only floor completely above ground - while the bedrooms and secondary rooms, i.e., the cellar, are on the lower floor (partly dug out of the hillside). The two floors are connected by an independent flight of steps affording direct access to the bathrooms and sleeping area.
The only element disrupting the simple composition is the curvilinear wall which, starting in the garden designed by Elena Balsari Berrone, accompanies the entrance steps providing direct access to the living room; the wall is reminiscent of a similar solution Magistretti had already adopted in Casa Gardella in Arenzano. The living room also differs from the rest of the house; it opens onto the landscape thanks to a seamless window with a wooden frame supported by steel piers sixteen centimetres thick; reinforced concrete was used for the rest of the structure.
Of all the single-family houses designed by Magistretti, Casa Cassina is considered one of his masterpieces. Its presentation in the magazine "Domus", and the description provided by Roberto Aloi in 1973, earned the house instant fame.
G. Gamberoni, Incontro con Vico Magistretti, in Casa&Giardino 104, marzo 1980
W. Pagliero, Architettura come rappresentazione, in Casa Oggi 163-164, febbraio 1988
Incontro con Vico Magistretti, in Casa e giardino, settembre 1989
C. Bellini, Il mestiere di architetto, in Habitat Ufficio 21, settembre 1986
V. Magistretti, Relazione di progetto, Casa Cassina, Carimate, 1964-65
R. Aloi, Villa Cassina, Carimate, Como, in Cinquanta ville del nostro tempo, Hoepli, Milano, 1970
Vico Magistretti: una casa sul colle, in Domus 444, novembre 1966
A Carimate, in Ville & Giardini 172, 20 gennaio 1982
F. Irace, V. Pasca, Vico Magistretti, architetto e designer, Milano 1999, pp. 2-9
