Villa in Recco

Surrounded by an extensive park, the Villa in Recco sits on a Ligurian headland overlooking the Baia dei Frati, in the heart of the Riviera di Levante. Initially built as a unified home before being divided into four separate dwellings, work on the residence has recouped its original essence as a single-family home for the new owners who commissioned an unprecedented collaboration between two studios – Gosplan Architects and Giordano Hadamik Architects (GHA) – with caarpa in charge of landscaping and studio.skey for the choice of decorative elements and furnishings. After gradual modifications layered over many decades, multiple adjoining volumes in different formal styles had given the building an eclectic look. Four years of shared, ongoing work on design, approvals, and construction generated a project to turn this fragmented legacy into a unified and contemporary composition, in which the architecture is shaped by the surrounding natural system.

The house stands on a promontory beside a 15^th-century Franciscan monastery, one of the few surviving fragments of Recco after the town was bombed on November 10, 1943. British aircraft flew in to destroy a railway bridge over which supplies were transported to Nazi/Fascist troops, almost entirely leveling the Ligurian village, including its monastery church.

One of the rare homes to survive, the villa formerly appeared as a solid, commanding presence, its park dominating views over the landscape. Gosplan and GHA’s design engaged in a calculated dialogue with nearby historical structures such as the former monastery, creating a micro-story to reveal the location’s identity. In their restrained design, the designers eschewed dramatic sculptural gestures and strengthened relations between the villa and the park to achieve the site’s previously unexpressed, embodied potential. The architects and landscape designer shaped the residence through ongoing cooperation,...

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