Atlas Villa Carlotta Marelli

In 1932 the architects were entrusted with the construction of a new single-family house set in what was originally the large garden of villa Arnaldo Marelli. The new building was a singular experience. Although it is only a little later than the villa Arnaldo Marelli, it shed that twentieth-century modernist vocabulary for the sake of a more traditional vision, but one notable for the way it engaged in a dialogue with the reuse of the stone architectural elements of the earlier villa in period style demolished to build villa Arnaldo Marelli. The architecture of villa Carlotta Marelli is a refined and skilful work of construction and detailing. The reuse of stone materials, thresholds, projecting balconies and string courses is notable for the careful study of precise solutions. The architecture is characterised by a sequence of bas-reliefs, transom windows and details coloured red. On the first floor, above the main entrance, a large dark red loggia emphasised the relationship between the external setting and the house; later the loggia was eventually altered to become a room within the house. The interiors, originally more ordinary, were laid out with the distribution corridor flanked by the rooms on either sides. These rooms have been subjected to later alterations, again by the architects themselves, to make the division of spaces less clear-cut and strengthen their relationship with the external setting of the house.