In piazza della Costituzione, in Quiliano, a nineteenth-century villa has changed jobs: once a private residence, it is now the town's exhibition hall. The building went up in the second half of the 19th century under the name of villa Pertusio; today it is called Villa Maria and, since the summer of 2005, it has housed the Spazio Arte Contemporanea Sperimentale, run by the municipality.
What to see
From the outside it is a genteel nineteenth-century villa facing the main square of the municipal seat, in the hinterland between Savona and Vado Ligure. It is not a house museum: the interiors are not visited for period furnishings, but for what happens inside them.
Within is a large exhibition space given over to contemporary art, which the municipality uses for shows, conferences, concerts and other cultural events. The calendar, rather than the architecture, decides what you will find: the contents change constantly and no visit resembles the last one.
Visiting
The doors open for exhibitions and events, so it is worth checking the municipal programme before setting off. Quiliano is reached from the Savona-Vado Ligure exit on the A10 motorway and then along provincial road 58, which links Savona and Vado Ligure; the nearest railway stop is Quiliano-Vado Ligure, on the Genoa-Ventimiglia line.
Our editors' tip
We would pair the visit with a walk along the river, where some twenty murals were painted in 2018, in widely different techniques and on widely different themes. Two of them, signed by the Genoese artists Enzo Dente and Nicola Soriani, commemorate the victims of the ponte Morandi: look for them, they are worth the detour.