‘La Scarabeo Sotto Una Foglia, 1969
‘La Scarabeo Sotto Una Foglia (also known as the Villa Anguissola), is located in the northern Italian city of Vicenza in the nearby town of Malo. Although it is not a very sought-after destination for most, it does attract the connoisseurs of Italian radical design. The experimental 1960s design is frozen in time, here.
The celebrated Lo Scarabeo sotta la Foglia is a residence designed by famed architect Gio Ponti, created soley for himself. The drawings of the dwelling sat uselessly until Giobatta Meneguzzo came across them in Domus magazine issue 414. Meneguzzo had been a great lover of contemporary art and the avant-garde movement since the 50s, collecting many works of prominent artists so it only made sense for him to fall in love with Ponti’s ideas for the radical residence. Ponti offered the published drawings to anyone who would build it, so Meneguzzo did just that.
The design was simple, a one-story dwelling that favored intimacy and the celebration of nature. The name itself implies, the resemblance of a beetle lying under a leaf. The oval-shaped villa with curbed walls evokes the beetle while its root imitates that of a fallen leaf.
Ponti refused any money for the project, in fact, he never even visited the site of the construction, something unheard of for an architect to have so little input during its erection. Nevertheless, the challenge was taken up and completed by Meneguzzo who fulfilled the vision of Ponti’s.
Once the home was completed, Meneguzzo approached Nanda Vigo to design the interior of the abode. Nanda’s followed a light-based ideology, pioneering modern Italian art since the early 1960s. Her works include furniture, lighting, interior design and various sculptures and installations. She was involved in the ZERO group, an internationally acclaimed movement who Piero Manzoni, her partner, was a member of. Nanda’s work favors striking designs typically made of chrome-plated steel, unique glass sheets and artifical fur. Her interiors were comissioned by wealthy art collectors and residential galleries. All of these factors made Vigo a perfect choice for La Scarabeo Sotto Una Foglia, adding in the fact that she was very familiar with Ponti and other modernist architects who were a part of the radical movement.
(Image credit: PRESS)
A pioneer of modern Italian art since the early 1960s, Nanda Vigo’s interdisciplinary practice has included furniture, lighting, and interior design, as well as sculpture and installations. She is affiliated with the movement- and light-based ideology of the internationally acclaimed ZERO group, of which her partner, Piero Manzoni, was a member. Vigo favors chrome-plated steel, artificial fur, and different types of glass sheets to create striking emotional and tactile objects. Her interiors, which she designed mainly for wealthy art collectors, are simultaneously residential galleries and hedonistic celebrations of freedom of the 1960s and ’70s.
While many believe Ponti would’ve opted for more detailed craftsmanship in the interior with pure materials that envoked modernist elegance, Nanda went with a cool monochromatic pallete of white ceramic tiles and gray artificial furs. The provocative interior met impressive art collections with works by Lucio Fontana, Enrico Castellani, Julio Le Parc, Domenico “Mimmo” Rotella, Raymond Hains, Agostino Bonalumi, Turi Simeti, and many others. The house became not only a radical experiment of modernist architecture, but a living gallery for some of the most prominent and progressive contemporary artworks of the time.
At a later date, the villa expanded to include an underground gallery, connected to the main house by an impressive fur-clad spiral staircase which has become one of the most well-known parts of the house.
In 1978, Meneguzzo opened his own museum, La Casabianca, which is only a short walk from the experimental weekend house which includes over 1200 works from over 700 international artists. It also was outfitted with impressive custom-designed lighting from Italian designer Achille Castiglioni.
La Scarabeo Sotta Una Foglia still remains today, frozen in time, with now-retired Meneguzzo and his wife residing in the famed home. You can visit the museum, La Casabianca during regular open hours.
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