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Greenhouses to visit in Italy

The Verrière atlas lists 48 greenhouses in Italy, built between 1750 and 2026.

Italy tells the story of the greenhouse through its university botanical gardens, some of the oldest in the world: in Padua, glasshouses of 1808–1814 stand beside the Giardino della Biodiversità, opened in 2014. Courts and villas left orangeries and fancies, from the Boboli Limonaia in Florence to the neo-Moorish Serra Moresca at Rome's Villa Torlonia and the Liberty-style glasshouses of Lainate; at Limone sul Garda, the Limonaia del Castèl recalls the lake's terraced lemon houses. Renzo Piano designed two contemporary glasshouses, in Genoa and Trento, and butterfly houses have opened from Bordano to Collodi.

48Greenhouses
1750Oldest — Limonaia Pra dela Fam (Lake Garda lemon house)
2026Newest — Serre di Parco Querini (serreQuerini), Vicenza
42Cities
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Tuscany (9)

Boboli Gardens Limonaia (Lemon House), Florence, Tuscany
1777–1778

Boboli Gardens Limonaia (Lemon House)

🇮🇹 Florence, Tuscany
A 106-metre lemon house built in 1777-1778 to shelter about 500 potted citrus trees descended from Medicean cultivars.
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Greenhouses of the Orto botanico comunale of Lucca (serre antiche of 1826 and modern greenhouses), Lucca, Tuscany
1826 · 2000

Greenhouses of the Orto botanico comunale of Lucca (serre antiche of 1826 and modern greenhouses)

🇮🇹 Lucca, Tuscany
A greenhouse of 1826 with large glazed facades, the garden's first heated one, paid for by sales from its plant nursery.
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1875

Antica Serra, Siena Botanical Garden

🇮🇹 Siena, Tuscany
A small iron-and-coloured-glass hothouse of 1875, restored in 2024, at the heart of Siena's university botanical garden.
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Greenhouses of the Giardino dei Semplici (Orto Botanico of Florence), Florence, Tuscany
1880

Greenhouses of the Giardino dei Semplici (Orto Botanico of Florence)

🇮🇹 Florence, Tuscany
A row of glasshouses more than 160 m long fronts Via Micheli, in one of the world's oldest botanical gardens, founded in 1545.
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Roster Tepidarium, Giardino dell'Orticoltura, Florence, Tuscany
1880

Roster Tepidarium, Giardino dell'Orticoltura

🇮🇹 Florence, Tuscany
A Florentine 'crystal palace' inaugurated in 1880 and presented as one of the largest glasshouses in Italy.
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Hesperidarium, Giardino degli Agrumi (Oscar Tintori), Castellare di Pescia, Tuscany
2004

Hesperidarium, Giardino degli Agrumi (Oscar Tintori)

🇮🇹 Castellare di Pescia, Tuscany
A 2,000 m² greenhouse holds over 200 citrus varieties, from Medici-era cultivars of the 1500s to selections from the southern hemisphere.
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Collodi Butterfly House (Casa delle Farfalle), Garzoni Garden, Collodi (province of Pistoia), Tuscany
2006–2007

Collodi Butterfly House (Casa delle Farfalle), Garzoni Garden

🇮🇹 Collodi (province of Pistoia), Tuscany
A structural-glass prism holding some 5,000 tropical butterflies, set on the site of the old greenhouses of a Tuscan baroque garden.
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Succulent greenhouses of the Giardino SottoVico (Vico d'Elsa botanical garden), Vico d'Elsa, Barberino Tavarnelle (Florence), Tuscany
2007 · 2011

Succulent greenhouses of the Giardino SottoVico (Vico d'Elsa botanical garden)

🇮🇹 Vico d'Elsa, Barberino Tavarnelle (Florence), Tuscany
In a volunteer-run Chianti garden, a 200 m² tempered-glass greenhouse and a second house hold over 3,000 cacti and succulents.
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Greenhouses of the Orto e Museo Botanico, University of Pisa, Pisa, Tuscany
2017–2018

Greenhouses of the Orto e Museo Botanico, University of Pisa

🇮🇹 Pisa, Tuscany
Four greenhouses grouped at the centre of the university botanical garden founded in 1543, the tropical house re-presented in 2018 with 150 species.
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Veneto (6)

Nineteenth-Century Greenhouses of the Orto Botanico of Padua (Serre ottocentesche), Padua, Veneto
1808–1814

Nineteenth-Century Greenhouses of the Orto Botanico of Padua (Serre ottocentesche)

🇮🇹 Padua, Veneto
Designed in 1804 for the oldest university botanical garden still on its original site, they were brought back to life in 2019.
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1845 · 1846

Orangery and Greenhouses of Villa Pisani

🇮🇹 Stra, Veneto
In the 19th century, citrus varieties grown at Stra were planted in the orangeries of Schönbrunn, the Hofburg and Tsar Alexander.
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Serra dei Giardini (Serra Margherita), Castello, Venice (Castello), Veneto
1894

Serra dei Giardini (Serra Margherita), Castello

🇮🇹 Venice (Castello), Veneto
The oldest permanent structure of the Biennale grounds: an 1894 iron-and-glass tepidarium, now a café and plant space.
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1988

Butterfly Arc (Casa delle Farfalle), Montegrotto Terme

🇮🇹 Montegrotto Terme (Province of Padua), Veneto
Italy's first butterfly house, opened in 1988: a tropical glass greenhouse where hundreds of butterflies fly freely.
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2005

Oasi Rossi Butterfly House (Casa delle farfalle)

🇮🇹 Santorso (Province of Vicenza), Veneto
A climate-controlled greenhouse of more than 1,200 m² where tropical butterflies fly freely among visitors at the foot of Monte Summano.
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Serre di Parco Querini (serreQuerini), Vicenza, Parco Querini, Vicenza, Veneto
2026

Serre di Parco Querini (serreQuerini), Vicenza

🇮🇹 Parco Querini, Vicenza, Veneto
Nineteenth-century greenhouses attributed to Jappelli, collapsed and then rebuilt in 2026 in black metal and glass, with a planted warm house.
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Campania (4)

Serra Merola (Stufa Temperata), Botanical Garden of Naples, Naples, Campania
1808 · 1820

Serra Merola (Stufa Temperata), Botanical Garden of Naples

🇮🇹 Naples, Campania
A neoclassical orangery of 1808 whose façade lines up seven glazed arches between Doric columns and thirty metopes carved with plants.
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1877

Serra Pedicino and succulent greenhouse, Orto Botanico di Portici

🇮🇹 Portici (Metropolitan City of Naples), Campania
An iron-and-glass greenhouse of 1877 set against the Belvedere wall, in the botanical garden founded five years earlier in the royal park of Portici.
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Serre di Graefer (Bourbon Greenhouses), Reggia di Caserta, Caserta, Campania

Serre di Graefer (Bourbon Greenhouses), Reggia di Caserta

🇮🇹 Caserta, Campania
The queen's gardener's glasshouses, the botanical laboratory of the Reggia's English Garden, reopened in 2024 after eight years of closure.
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Victoria House and Orchid House, Giardini La Mortella, Forio, Ischia (Naples), Campania

Victoria House and Orchid House, Giardini La Mortella

🇮🇹 Forio, Ischia (Naples), Campania
A tropical greenhouse whose pool, dominated by a stone face, carries the giant waterlily Victoria amazonica, in a composer's garden.
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Emilia-Romagna (4)

1836

Serre Ducali, Modena Botanical Garden

🇮🇹 Modena, Emilia-Romagna
Two large ducal greenhouses completed in 1836 and restored until 2025, in Modena's botanical garden founded in 1758.
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Tropical and succulent greenhouses (Serra Lodi) of the Orto botanico, University of Bologna, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna
1988

Tropical and succulent greenhouses (Serra Lodi) of the Orto botanico, University of Bologna

🇮🇹 Bologna, Emilia-Romagna
A succulent greenhouse donated for the university's ninth centenary in 1988, now under renovation, glass panes included.
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2002

Casa delle Farfalle (Butterfly House), Milano Marittima

🇮🇹 Milano Marittima, Cervia (Province of Ravenna), Emilia-Romagna
In the Cervia pinewood, a greenhouse of more than 500 m² where hundreds of tropical butterflies fly over a small lake.
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Greenhouses of the University of Ferrara Botanic Garden (Orto botanico)

🇮🇹 Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna
In the park of a 16th-century palace, a cold house, a hot house and a succulent house hold about a thousand species.
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Lombardy (4)

Limonaia Pra dela Fam (Lake Garda lemon house), Tignale (Porto di Tignale), Lombardy
1750 · 2011

Limonaia Pra dela Fam (Lake Garda lemon house)

🇮🇹 Tignale (Porto di Tignale), Lombardy
A lakeside lemon garden dating from 1750, still roofed each winter with numbered boards and glazed panels.
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Scopoli Greenhouses, Pavia Botanical Garden (Serre Scopoliane), Pavia, Lombardy
1776

Scopoli Greenhouses, Pavia Botanical Garden (Serre Scopoliane)

🇮🇹 Pavia, Lombardy
Glasshouses begun in 1776 to a design by Piermarini that still shelter cycads and more than 500 species of succulents.
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1892–1898

Liberty Greenhouses of Villa Visconti Borromeo Arese Litta (Serre Liberty)

🇮🇹 Lainate (Metropolitan City of Milan), Lombardy
Two Liberty-style iron-and-glass greenhouses that keep a historic collection of more than 2,800 rare orchids.
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Limonaia del Castèl (Lake Garda lemon house), Limone sul Garda, Lombardy
2004

Limonaia del Castèl (Lake Garda lemon house)

🇮🇹 Limone sul Garda, Lombardy
An early 18th-century lemon house whose white pillars carried boards and glass panes from November to March.
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Lazio (3)

Serra Moresca of Villa Torlonia, Rome, Lazio
1839–1841

Serra Moresca of Villa Torlonia

🇮🇹 Rome, Lazio
A Neo-Moorish greenhouse designed in 1839 by Giuseppe Jappelli, reopened in December 2021 after fourteen years of closure.
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Greenhouses of the Orto Botanico di Roma (Serra Monumentale and Serra Corsini), Rome, Lazio
1877

Greenhouses of the Orto Botanico di Roma (Serra Monumentale and Serra Corsini)

🇮🇹 Rome, Lazio
The Serra Monumentale, built by the Lyon firm Mathian in 1877, stands in the former grounds of Queen Christina of Sweden's palace.
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1993

Tropical Greenhouse (Serra tropicale), Angelo Rambelli Botanical Garden, University of Tuscia

🇮🇹 Viterbo, Lazio
A greenhouse of almost 200 m² kept at 80-85% humidity, in a garden beside the sulphurous Bulicame thermal spring.
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Liguria (3)

1859 · 1965

Greenhouses of the Orto Botanico of the University of Genoa (Hanbury)

🇮🇹 Genoa, Liguria
A one-hectare city-centre garden holds six greenhouses on three levels, including a large masonry house begun in 1859.
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Liberty Greenhouse of Villa Negrotto Cambiaso Park, Arenzano, Liguria
1931

Liberty Greenhouse of Villa Negrotto Cambiaso Park

🇮🇹 Arenzano, Liguria
A Liberty-style glasshouse of 1931, commissioned by a marchesa and modelled on the iron-and-glass conservatories of 19th-century France and England.
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Biosfera, Renzo Piano's Glass Bubble (La Bolla), Genoa, Liguria
2001

Biosfera, Renzo Piano's Glass Bubble (La Bolla)

🇮🇹 Genoa, Liguria
A 20-metre glass bubble hanging over the water of Genoa's old harbour shelters a miniature tropical rainforest.
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Piedmont (3)

1843 · 2007

Greenhouses of the University of Turin Botanical Garden (Orto Botanico)

🇮🇹 Turin, Piedmont
A Dutch-style greenhouse of 1843, once fitted with heating, hotbeds and a reservoir tank, now shelters orchids and other rainforest plants.
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Royal Greenhouses of Racconigi Castle (Serre Reali), Racconigi, Piedmont
1844–1848

Royal Greenhouses of Racconigi Castle (Serre Reali)

🇮🇹 Racconigi, Piedmont
A long neo-Gothic nave of iron and glass built for the House of Savoy at the far end of the park of Racconigi Castle, a World Heritage site.
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Iron-and-glass greenhouse of Pralormo Castle

🇮🇹 Pralormo (Turin), Piedmont
An iron-and-glass greenhouse by the Lefebvre brothers of Paris, set against the wall of a Piedmontese castle, sheltering citrus and orchids from the winters.
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Sicily (3)

2008 · 1958

Tepidarium of the University of Catania Botanical Garden (Orto Botanico)

🇮🇹 Catania, Sicily
Supplied by a Paris firm and likened to Palermo's glasshouse, the great greenhouse demolished in 1958 was rebuilt in 2008.
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2010

Serra Subtropicale (Serra dei Congressi) of the Radicepura Botanical Park

🇮🇹 Giarre (Catania), Sicily
An iron-and-glass greenhouse whose roof carries 610 semi-transparent photovoltaic modules, at the foot of Mount Etna.
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Greenhouse of the Giardino Inglese (Casa delle Ninfee), Palermo, Sicily

Greenhouse of the Giardino Inglese (Casa delle Ninfee)

🇮🇹 Palermo, Sicily
A cast-iron and glass greenhouse shaped like an upturned hull, rescued from abandonment by an association that now grows water lilies in it.
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Friuli-Venezia Giulia (2)

1856–1860

Antiche Serre (Old Greenhouses) in the Miramare Castle Park

🇮🇹 Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Greenhouses built for Maximilian of Habsburg and restored in 2024 to shelter citrus again, a dream the nineteenth-century climate had prevented.
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Casa delle Farfalle (Butterfly House), Bordano, Bordano, Friuli-Venezia Giulia
2003

Casa delle Farfalle (Butterfly House), Bordano

🇮🇹 Bordano, Friuli-Venezia Giulia
In a village levelled by the 1976 earthquake, three tropical greenhouses of about 1,000 m² hold more than a thousand free-flying butterflies.
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South Tyrol (2)

Glashaus (Tropical Glasshouse), Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle

🇮🇹 Merano (Meran), South Tyrol
A contemporary glasshouse whose jagged outline echoes the peaks of the Texel Group, with a leafcutter-ant colony on show in a display case.
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Raffeiner Orchideenwelt (orchid glasshouses, butterfly house and orangery), Gargazon / Gargazzone (Bolzano province), South Tyrol

Raffeiner Orchideenwelt (orchid glasshouses, butterfly house and orangery)

🇮🇹 Gargazon / Gargazzone (Bolzano province), South Tyrol
The glasshouses of a South Tyrolean orchid nursery, turned into a visitor trail with butterflies, lories, koi and, since 2026, an orangery.
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Elsewhere (5)

1823

Serra Carolina (Giardino d'Inverno)

🇮🇹 Palermo
A gift from Queen Maria Carolina in 1823, this winter garden shelters coffee trees and papaya trees beneath the Sicilian sky.
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Giardino della Biodiversità, Padua
2014

Giardino della Biodiversità

🇮🇹 Padua
Five biomes under glass, in the world's oldest university botanical garden.
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MUSE Tropical Greenhouse (Museo delle Scienze), Trento, Trentino-Alto Adige
2013

MUSE Tropical Greenhouse (Museo delle Scienze)

🇮🇹 Trento, Trentino-Alto Adige
A fragment of Tanzania's Udzungwa mountain forest recreated under glass at 30 °C in a science museum designed by Renzo Piano.
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Mesocosmo (Butterfly House), Natural History Museum of Salento, Calimera (Province of Lecce), Apulia
2018

Mesocosmo (Butterfly House), Natural History Museum of Salento

🇮🇹 Calimera (Province of Lecce), Apulia
A 630 m² rainforest cooled with groundwater, set in a holm-oak wood in the Salento peninsula.
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Victoria Greenhouse and Vertical Garden, Villa Taranto Botanical Gardens, Pallanza, Verbania (Piedmont)

Victoria Greenhouse and Vertical Garden, Villa Taranto Botanical Gardens

🇮🇹 Pallanza, Verbania (Piedmont)
A glazed house shelters the giant Victoria cruziana water lily each summer, grown at Villa Taranto since 1956, in front of a vertical garden.
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Architecture in Italy

Ca' Foscari: Aula Mario Baratto (former Aula Magna), Venice (Dorsoduro, Ca' Foscari)
1935 · 1956

Ca' Foscari: Aula Mario Baratto (former Aula Magna)

🇮🇹 Venice (Dorsoduro, Ca' Foscari)
The long Gothic mullioned window, closed by wooden joinery in horizontal lines, frames the view of the Grand Canal.
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Palazzo Abatellis (Regional Gallery of Sicily), Palermo
1953–1954

Palazzo Abatellis (Regional Gallery of Sicily)

🇮🇹 Palermo
Inside a fifteenth-century palace, Carlo Scarpa composed a route through rooms that are by turns compressed and dilated, where light and the placing of the works guide the visitor.
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Possagno Gypsotheca: Scarpa wing, Possagno, province of Treviso
1955–1957

Possagno Gypsotheca: Scarpa wing

🇮🇹 Possagno, province of Treviso
A square hall and a lower trapezoidal volume that draw the eye to the Three Graces, with a pool of water in front of them throwing back the light.
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Church of Our Lady of Cadore (Eni village, Borca di Cadore), Borca di Cadore (Belluno province)
1956–1961

Church of Our Lady of Cadore (Eni village, Borca di Cadore)

🇮🇹 Borca di Cadore (Belluno province)
A three-aisled reinforced-concrete church under a steeply pitched roof, designed by Edoardo Gellner in collaboration with Carlo Scarpa for the Eni holiday village.
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1956

Japan Pavilion, Venice Biennale (ヴェネチア・ビエンナーレ日本館)

🇮🇹 Venice (Giardini della Biennale)
A 1956 pavilion whose exhibition floor is cut through at its centre by an opening that reaches the piloti space below.
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Olivetti Showroom (Negozio Olivetti), Piazza San Marco, Venice
1957–1958

Olivetti Showroom (Negozio Olivetti)

🇮🇹 Piazza San Marco, Venice
A showroom on Piazza San Marco, with a central staircase of Aurisina stone with staggered steps and a coloured-glass mosaic floor.
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Castelvecchio Museum, Verona, Veneto
1958–1964

Castelvecchio Museum

🇮🇹 Verona, Veneto
A medieval castle that Carlo Scarpa turned into a museum route, with the equestrian statue of Cangrande I on a 7-metre concrete support.
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Fondazione Querini Stampalia (ground floor, garden and bridge), Venice (Castello, Santa Maria Formosa)
1959–1963

Fondazione Querini Stampalia (ground floor, garden and bridge)

🇮🇹 Venice (Castello, Santa Maria Formosa)
Water enters the building and reappears in the garden, and the light it reflects trembles on the ceilings.
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Brion Memorial (Brion Tomb), San Vito d'Altivole, province of Treviso
1969–1978

Brion Memorial (Brion Tomb)

🇮🇹 San Vito d'Altivole, province of Treviso
A funerary garden of concrete and water, completed after Carlo Scarpa's death from his drawings, with an arch-bridge clad in glass tesserae over gold leaf.
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1977

Esprit Nouveau Pavilion (1977 replica)

🇮🇹 Bologna, Emilia-Romagna
The model dwelling Le Corbusier showed in Paris in 1925, demolished in 1926 and rebuilt in Bologna in 1977.
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2000

Fabrica

🇮🇹 Catena di Villorba, Treviso
A sunken elliptical piazza answers a 17th-century villa: the new void against the old solid.
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2001

Armani/Teatro (アルマーニ・テアトロ)

🇮🇹 Via Bergognone, Milan
A former Nestlé chocolate factory turned into a fashion-show theatre, its facade left almost untouched.
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2004

Invisible House (見えない家)

🇮🇹 Ponzano Veneto, near Treviso
A partly buried house in the middle of 32,000 m2 of grounds; from the road, nothing shows but its entrance block.
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Palazzo Grassi, San Marco, Venice
2006

Palazzo Grassi

🇮🇹 San Marco, Venice
A palace by Giorgio Massari, said to be the last one raised on the Grand Canal before the Republic of Venice fell, where Tadao Ando fitted out the Pinault Collection's first exhibition venue in 2006.
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Punta della Dogana, Dorsoduro, Venice
2009

Punta della Dogana

🇮🇹 Dorsoduro, Venice
A 17th-century Venetian sea customs house that Tadao Ando restored with its brick left bare, and a reinforced-concrete cube set at its centre.
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Palazzo Lombardia, Milan
2010

Palazzo Lombardia

🇮🇹 Milan
Interweaving curved buildings around a covered plaza, topped by a 161 m tower.
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2013

Teatrino of Palazzo Grassi

🇮🇹 San Marco, Venice
A 225-seat auditorium that Tadao Ando set inside the shell of a former Venetian theatre, on the site of a romantic garden with greenhouses.
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2014

Duvetica Showroom

🇮🇹 Via Senato, Milan
An inclined, curved concrete wall, 12 metres long and over 7 metres high, which ran vertically through the showroom's two levels.
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