It has taken three years of restoration and 6 million euros but in the end Villa Necchi is reopening its doors for visitors. The beautiful residence built between 1932 and 1935 by architect Piero Portaluppi and modernized by Tomaso Buzzi, brought architectonic rationalism to the Italian economic capital. The villa was built by an enlightened family of the high bourgeoisie of Pavia that, having moved to Milan, made of their house a coterie for cultural aggregation open to the world. It was donated to the FAI in 2001 by the sisters Gigina Necchi Campigli and Nedda Necchi and today it is reopening its doors, placing itself as the city’s renewed cultural reference point, which in the administrators’ intentions will have to be not only a place to admire but a place to live.
A work of art inside and out. Right in the city centre, the villa encloses one of the most beautiful Milanese gardens, where (absolute novelty for the period) the owners wanted a heated swimming pool and tennis court.
Inside the villa, two wonderful collections: Claudia Gian Ferrari’s collection of works of art dating from the early 20th century (with 44 works by various artists, from Arturo Martini to Giorgio Morandi, from Giorgio de Chirico to Mario Sironi) and the collection of 18th-century paintings and decorative arts donated from Alighiero and Emilietta De’ Micheli (with paintings by Canaletto, Tiepolo, Marieschi and Rosalba Carriera as well as precious Chinese porcelain and Lombard majolica, miniatures by Jean Baptiste Isabey belonging to Napoleon).
The restoration also served to make the best use of the site, not only as a place to visit but also as a space that can be truly lived. Indeed, it will be possible to use this space for conferences, parties and various celebrations. Furthermore, the villa-museum will be open also in the evenings with its cafeteria in front of the swimming pool and tennis court, to become a place that all the Milanese people can live directly.
A new challenge for the FAI. Indeed this is the first project that this institution is administering in a great metropolitan reality, in an area with its own precise identity. The main intention is to bring this wonderful place back to its primary function, that is to receive, to be a meeting point but also a place of relax and meditation, as well as a moment for personal and professional meeting in a city that always knows how to be visionary and pragmatic at the same time.
The restoration of Villa Necchi Campiglio, according to the president of the FAI Giulia Maria Mozzoni Crespi, is the symbol of the fight conducted by Fondo Ambiente Italia “in favour of quality and thoroughness, in the perspective of showing everyone the Italian values”.
The list of supporters is substantial, next to the Ministry, Region, Province and Arcus (Art, Culture, Entertainment), there are Fondazione Cariplo, always attentive to cultural projects on the Milanese territory, RCR MediaGroup, Telecom Italia but also Giorgio Armani. The fashion designer “fascinated by the artistic and cultural richness of the villa” has supported with enthusiasm the appeal of the FAI.
The opening of Villa Necchi also launches the project of museum-houses in Milan, which sees the involvement of the Museum Poldi Pezzoli, the Museum Bagatti Valsecchi and the Boschi-Di Stefano Home.