Architecture is a complex phenomenon, even more articulated than painting and sculpture.
Villa Frascoli is a Liberty-style residence designed by architect Piero Portaluppi in the 1920s. Since then the building has overlooked the small gulf of Laveno on Lake Maggiore, its main façade facing south-west onto a panoramic terrace above the water.
The villa is divided into two independent apartments over two floors, plus a basement for the kitchen and service rooms and an attic level. Inside, refined sgraffito decorations in umber and sienna earth tones, lozenge motifs, lilies and scrolls blend a fifteenth-century taste with Baroque aesthetics and Art Nouveau accents.
Outside, lime-plaster balustrades, wrought-iron Liberty railings and a park of centuries-old trees lead the eye from the gulf up to the Sasso del Ferro, over a thousand metres high.