Restoration of Casa Buffa
Torre del Mare is a portion of the territory in the Municipality of Bergeggi, in the province of Savona, where between 1954 and 1961 Mr. Pierino Tizzoni, the motorcycle champion and owner of the land, built a holiday home after a competition for architects won by the architect Mario Galvagni.
At the time, the place was barren and steep, covered with stones, lichens and thyme, lavender, broom and limonina plants.
When Galvagni arrived in Bergeggi with the task to build a series of holiday homes, he simultaneously thought about the urban-landscape structure and the architectural dimension, developing an extraordinary sequence of projects.
In a very short time Mario designed and organized the access roads, the services, the greenery and the street furniture along the slope of the hill on which he placed his architecture: about twenty villas and two complexes for accommodation located on the steep ground in front of the Bergeggi
Island.
In the following decades, the area experienced a very strong development and the promontory was dotted with many buildings, highlighting the potential of the area with a strong tourist and receptive vocation.
Since 2005, the Municipal Administration has embarked on a campaign to enhance the work done by the very young Milanese architect by developing a research and census of the works and establishing a real Architectural Park of Torre del Mare.
Casa Buffa was built in 1956 and is part of this very original nucleus, unique in Italy for its characteristics.
Unfortunately about fifteen years ago the house underwent important transformations, mainly inside, which changed the distribution parts and lost many original materials.
The recovery intervention involved a substantial revision of many of the processes carried out and the correction of works that had constituted modifications of the original.
It was therefore a question of working through a meticulous repair work to restore and recompose a structure as consistent as possible with the characteristics of the project.
Fortunately, the majority of the architectural parts relating to the elevations and roofs have maintained their original structures and forms, allowing through the recent restoration work to achieve a good level of protection, maintenance and interpretation of the composition of the villa.