Description
Palazzo Maggiani is one of the most distinctive Art Nouveau buildings in La Spezia, in full view on the corner of Corso Cavour and Viale Aldo Ferrari: a corner building with different decoration on every floor, well worth a stop to gaze upwards.
It was built between 1900 and 1902, the years when La Spezia, the Arsenal city, was becoming an industrial town. Scholars of La Spezia's Liberty style have called its decoration "capricious and bizarre", and not without reason. The design was shown in 1910 at the International Exhibition of Art Nouveau in Paris.
On the façade, look for the little angel: your eye reaches it by following the offerings of flowers held by a row of female figures. All around appear Art Nouveau's favourite symbols, the peacock and the sunflower.
Inside, a courtyard covered by a skylight leads to three staircases and a lift. The entrance hall still has the porter's lodge, in fine carved wood, with the apartment that went with it, and the lobby floor is by the firm of Adolfo Boletto, a craftsman from Chiavari who became famous in La Spezia.
Another work by Boletto is the mosaic under the arcades of the Palazzo dell'Ammiragliato, an 1853 building on Via Domenico Chiodo: a good excuse for a second stop along the thread of La Spezia's Art Nouveau.
The lift has a little story of its own. Installed in 1906, it was hydraulic and the first of its kind in the city: tangible proof of the technical progress of the new La Spezia. It stayed in service until the 1990s, when it was replaced.
The building has also known fear. At dawn on 17 July 1996, at around six, a fire broke out on the top floor: firefighters brought forty families to safety, but four apartments were destroyed and six more badly damaged. Ten families were left homeless for a long time.
It was built between 1900 and 1902, the years when La Spezia, the Arsenal city, was becoming an industrial town. Scholars of La Spezia's Liberty style have called its decoration "capricious and bizarre", and not without reason. The design was shown in 1910 at the International Exhibition of Art Nouveau in Paris.
On the façade, look for the little angel: your eye reaches it by following the offerings of flowers held by a row of female figures. All around appear Art Nouveau's favourite symbols, the peacock and the sunflower.
Inside, a courtyard covered by a skylight leads to three staircases and a lift. The entrance hall still has the porter's lodge, in fine carved wood, with the apartment that went with it, and the lobby floor is by the firm of Adolfo Boletto, a craftsman from Chiavari who became famous in La Spezia.
Another work by Boletto is the mosaic under the arcades of the Palazzo dell'Ammiragliato, an 1853 building on Via Domenico Chiodo: a good excuse for a second stop along the thread of La Spezia's Art Nouveau.
The lift has a little story of its own. Installed in 1906, it was hydraulic and the first of its kind in the city: tangible proof of the technical progress of the new La Spezia. It stayed in service until the 1990s, when it was replaced.
The building has also known fear. At dawn on 17 July 1996, at around six, a fire broke out on the top floor: firefighters brought forty families to safety, but four apartments were destroyed and six more badly damaged. Ten families were left homeless for a long time.