There is a fascinating exhibition for anyone who is interested in architecture and social history at Barga’s Fondazione Ricci (20 Via Roma).

In 1929 the town’s local newspaper wrote “Barga after a period of inertia has shaken off its medieval dust to rise to fresh importance in our century. The opening of new roads favoured new development.  The panorama of magnificent villas in the Piangrande, and the Piano di Canteo is lovely. These are imposing and engaging villas that our wealthy emigrants built in their birthplace. They are dreams of their busy life abroad: dreams of returning one day to pass the remainder of their lives in blissful family tranquility and to leave the deep imprint of an industrious, dignified people who loved their homeland.”

‘New Barga’ testifies to the remarkable urban development that the town pursued during the first thirty years of the last century and which was favored by the economic contribution of returning emigrants. They introduced art nouveau (called ‘stile liberty’ in Italy) and new international architectural trends to Barga’s urban landscape…

The exhibition at the Ricci Foundation, itself a good example of the ‘New Barga’ architecture, focuses on those buildings built between 1900 and 1935 in Art Nouveau, Liberty and neo-eclectic style.

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The research that has gone into presenting the exhibition is prodigious. There is extensive documentation of the buildings, on their architects, designers and the Barga citizens who commissioned them and created Barga’s New Town or “Nuova Barga”.  Permission to visit private houses has enabled an extensive photographic survey to be compiled and I was astonished at how the exteriors of supposedly sober villas hid the most luscious interiors.

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The exhibition also presents through newspapers, publications and photographs of the time, the age’s cultural climate and its economic and social conditions. To date over one hundred houses have been listed. Architectural styles range from simple early twentieth century cottages, to the Moorish influence seen in Villa Canteo to Art Nouveau in the Villa Moorings to the neo-colonial style of Villa Buenos Aires.

The exhibition offers a marvelous opportunity to discover the architects of these buildings, the exterior decorators who adorned them with ceramics and the artists who ornamented the interiors with frescoes and created stained glass windows, furniture, iron objects such as railings and balustrades that represent the best examples of these styles.

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What is particularly fascinating is the way the houses of Barga’s new town developed from late nineteenth century eclecticism, to Art Nouveau, to William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, to Art Deco and Streamline-Modernism.  It’s not just places like Lucca (see my post at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/art-nouveau-lucca-style/) and Viareggio which hold fine examples of twentieth century architecture: Barga now has to be added to that list!

This exhibition s opening times are as follows:

Thursday and Friday 4 pm – 7 pm

Saturday and Sunday 10 am – 12 am and 4 pm to 7 pm.

For more information see the Fondazione Ricci’s web site at https://www.fondazionericci.info/