Incoming students at the Academy of Architecture visit the Museum Vincenzo Vela
International Relations and Study abroad Service
21 October 2020
On Friday, 11 September, 10 mobility students together with 30 regular students of USI's Academy of Architecture joined the last social activity of the Italian intensive course: a guided tour of the Museum Vincenzo Vela in Ligornetto.
Due to the current Covid-19 provisions the museum was reached on foot via a nature trail through the woods.
Villa Vela and its collection was donated to the Swiss Confederation in 1892 by the painter Spartaco Vela, son of the better-known Vincenzo.
The artist’s house is one of the most important artist’s residences of the European nineteenth century and it hosts the monumental plaster-cast collection of the realist sculptor Vincenzo Vela.
The tall salon at the center recreates the ‘pantheon’ of prominent figures of the Italian Risorgimento, which is surrounded by Vela’s most important works and the family’s collection of paintings. The villa was built to a project by Cipriano Ajmetti, who worked for the Savoy Court. In 2001 the reconstruction works were assigned to the world-famous architect Mario Botta. The construction site lasted 4 years.
The park, a mix of a formal Italian garden and English landscaping, is enriched by an extraordinary collection of citrus trees and small compositions of ornamental plants.
The students will certainly remember this visit: the giants of plaster (up to 16m high) fascinate all visitors.
