Villa Vacchetta is an Art Nouveau residence in Caraglio, designed in 1910 by the architect Vacchetta as his own home. That fact matters more than it might seem: a professional drawing a house for himself has no client to satisfy, and what comes out says what he really thought about the architecture of his time.
What to see
The building is made of several bodies that interpenetrate one another. The main volume is two floors high; onto it is grafted a wing of three, and that difference in height is the move that holds the whole composition together. On the street front the façade of the main body culminates in a turret, within which is framed a large elliptical window surmounted by acroteria. The main entrance is on a raised floor and is preceded by a covered loggia, reached by two small flights of steps set at right angles to each other: one faces the entrance gate, the other the private park in which the villa sits.
Visiting
The decoration is the part that makes the style clear. Floral motifs are everywhere: on the front they appear as decorations in litocemento, a material Art Nouveau used a great deal because it delivered at reasonable cost what would have been prohibitive in stone, and they return in the wrought-iron railings, where the design is avowedly Liberty, with nothing held back.
Our editors' tip
Caraglio in the early twentieth century was not just any town: silk had left it four spinning mills, a throwing mill and a middle class that could afford an architect. Villa Vacchetta should be seen in that context, and it is worth setting beside Villa Griselli at Caluso, of 1926: two Art Nouveau villas not far apart, in a district where Art Nouveau is not at home, both built by the men who were going to live in them. A practical note: the villa stands inside a private park, so it is looked at from outside, and the best point is the road, from which you can read the relation between the turret and the rest of the house.