Villa Glicini

The garden was the starting point for the restoration and extension of Villa Glicini by Laura Mascino, an Art Nouveau small villa like so many others – home and studio of an artist.

Villa Glicini is an Art Nouveau house dating from the early 20th century, a small villa like so many others sitting in a garden.

Neither the house nor garden were subject to restrictions so the garden became the starting point for the project; the driving concept behind the restoration was to make the most of what was already there.

The next step in the design process focused on the proportions of the house and how to lend them more dignity: the four fronts were raised to give breathing space to the first-floor windows and the fronts were redesigned with greater emphasis on the moulding around the windows; the top cornice was also redesigned to give it the added status of a separation between the existing construction and the future extension. A decision was taken to extend the building upwards and to the rear, reoccupying the footprint of an earlier addition and leaving the size of the garden unaltered.

The first stage in the works consisted in the structural consolidation and repair of the building. Starting from the foundations, we hollowed out the interior of the building to a height of approximately one metre, the walls were consolidated and an igloo ventilation system was inserted on this level.

The wooden floor on the first level was consolidated, working only from above to save the decorations on the ground-floor ceiling: the floor was in a poor condition and required structural reinforcement. Given the fairly small beam section, we applied two planks to each one, fixing them with resin and alternate nailing. Once the beams were consolidated, crosspiece beams were inserted. This system was then covered with two layers of crossed boards, 3 cm thick.

During the floor and wall consolidation phase, we also applied an external carbon-fibre ring.

The outer walls were raised by approximately one metre, continuing the wall in solid bricks and then reinforcing it with internal and external steel plating.

At the top of this wall, we designed a large cornice, made of concrete and cast in situ.

The roof’s load-bearing structure does not rest on the existing walls. In the project, the support columns were set in from the outer support walls. This composition decision meant that steel coupled beams were inserted in the floor between the first and second levels; these rest only on the outer walls, without increasing the load on the spine wall.

We conducted a careful investigation on the internal walls to verify the layers of plaster and see whether any decorations might emerge. The samples revealed interesting Art Nouveau polychrome strip decorations and floral motifs, and it was decided to retrieve these wherever possible.

All the work executed on the finishes of the existing building is the result of a careful rereading of the materials adopted in the Art Nouveau period, plus experimentation with traditional materials and techniques.

As in the early 20th century, the window and door thresholds were made in concrete; the external render on the ground-floor base repeated the original rusticated decoration in fine render, applied with a small trowel; the paving of the drive is concrete, smoothed and rolled. The flooring on the ground level, as too that in the bathrooms, is a typical lime Terrazzo (pastellone) with pale and grey marble aggregate. The paving of the small top-floor terrace is Cementine (decorated concrete tiles).

The extension is a block that develops above and to the rear of the house, in a completely different language from the original construction. It is on three glazed floors, with a steel column structure and a large black concrete wall.

The transparency was decided for visual continuity with the garden, especially important from the inside. The study of the doors and windows and the design of the uprights and crosspieces was based on simple steel sections and their assembly options.

The extension also makes extensive use of concrete, always left unfinished. The major architectural feature is a large black-concrete wall that extends up the three floors and is a key part of the extension’s support structure. The black concrete required some experimentation, both because it was coloured during casting and because it is load-bearing, meaning its structural requisites had to remain unaltered. The wall was cast in three different stages and the colour variations produced by this were maintained as a sign of its authenticity.

This project was awarded with the Premio di Architettura Città di Venezia 2014.

Laura Mascino, Villa Glicini, plan

Laura Mascino, Villa Glicini, elevations

Villa Glicini, Mogliano Veneto (Treviso – Italy)
Program: single family house
Architect: Laura Mascino
Collaborators: Annapaola Pola, Chiara Spina, Valentina Gregianin
Contractor: Edileff
Restoration: Chiave di Volta
Completion: 2013

Villa Glicini

The garden was the starting point for the restoration and extension of Villa Glicini by Laura Mascino, an Art Nouveau small villa like so many others – home and studio of an artist.

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