Villa Capo Zafferano When you happen to arrive at Villa Capo Zafferano you already by the gate know that an architect with an extraordinary imaginary sensibility has been at work. When slowly bringing your car to the end of the narrow spiral driveway from the street to the villa, you find a smaller but similar spiral staircase leading up to a plastered pass running all the way to the end of the land behind the house. Surrounded by all kind of Mediterranean bushes and trees one get the immediate feeling that it was the architect’s earnest purpose to cut off a chaotic world when you finally arrive at Villa Capo Zafferano. Met by Giacomo Barraja - the son of the Architect of Villa Capo Zafferano Armando Barraja - you soon get to know that you have arrived in a place with a soul and that Giacomo with a passion has set out to conserve his father’s visionary architectural heritage for yet another generation! Entering the house through the walled courtyards ending up in the living room you immediately are confronted with the scenery through the big living room window in which the horizon of an immensely blue Tyrrhenian Sea and a raising Capo Zafferano ultimately draw you to the concave balcony. A balcony that stretch parallel along the horizon and right at the point where the midday sun in zenith offer the dweller a cooling shadow for the rest of the day. The concave shape of the balcony seems to be swivelling even the weakest ocean breeze smoothly around ones body and a thought immediately come to mind that you are embraced in the arms of nature - as if captured by the arms of a giant octopus - and never will be released from this place again. Giacomo explains that the lower level terrace - throwing a convex bow to the ocean - is thought for sunbathers and the upper terrace for shadow lovers… of which his father as a Sicilian belongs to the last simpatico category. You surely know by experience what precautions you will have to take having stayed in the house for a week! The amount of sun protection creams needed for the convex terrace is immense - although the month of May 2019 was the coolest in Sicily for decades – and the concave balcony is a needed escape into a safe cave of shadow… Grilled by the sun un the lower deck for an hour your mind is in gratitude to the architect Mr. Barraja and his shadowy balcony. Strolling down to the private sea bath below the house is all in itself a sensational journey awakening all your senses! Tracking between Agaves, Pine trees and a myriad of flowers releasing their sweet scent into the salty humid breeze of vapour from the breaking waves on the cliffs below... you are immersed in a primordial natural world as Sicily must have been looking when the Phoenicians set their foot on Sicilian earth. Arrived at the cliffs and the breaking waves it suddenly becomes obvious that the cliffs churning up of the waves making floating islands of a delicate white foam must have been that foam from which Venus was born…non the less a Botticelli comes to mind. Well, the clear salty water will spellbound any swimmer and fearless diver even on a cold but clear afternoon in May. In the horizon the Aeolian Islands with Alicudi at the closest, then Filicudi, Salina and finally Lipari are disappearing in a bluish vapour. Looking up to the villa from the seaside below you certainly become aware of the architectural vision - that of classic modernism. A modernism that might be drawing its inspiration from the likes of a Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Alto and eventually a breath of Carlo Scarpa. But Mr Giacomo Barraja is not to put into a referential modernist pattern; his architectural vocabulary is visible down to the smallest constructive detail and up to the proportional rhythms of modular units from floor to wall and light openings… inside and outside. In this villa you recall the love for Euclidian geometry and that repeating pattern of the Arabian world blended by the light and shadow in spaces of the normannic purists … a sigh of Sicilian history? At a second glance on the villa the two sidewards’ bridges suddenly reminds us of the good old ocean liners that might have inspired Gropius or Rietveld with their iron fenced balconies. The one side pointing at the Capo and the other pointing unobstructed towards eternity! Well we can’t get closer to the ocean and the view into eternity…. the architect truly sends us on a journey. We think this architectural work by Mr. Barraja is worth much more respect and attention beyond the horizon of the Tyrrhenian Sea! For a Designer at a certain age the small collection of modernist furniture inhabiting the interior of the house - approximately from the same time as the house was build - must be a pleasing déjà vu for any connoisseur of modern design although the salty wind has taken its toll on some of the objects. But never the less it hasn’t obstructed this pleasant feeling of meeting good old friends…such as Panton – Breuer – Sapper – and even a couple of Danese vases eventually designed by Enzo Mari. But what might be much more interesting the wooden chaise longue belonging to the Barraja family since the 1920ies is definitely an amazing object of unknown origin apart from the inspirational influence of a Charlotte Perriand’s aesthetic vocabulary. No, the Villa Capo Zafferano is not a museum but a house respectfully lived by second generation. The walls with small and screwed traces of gimmick gifts that doesn’t fit a designers aesthetic values, but what anyhow mimics life as it is lived with a family of different orientations in life. For the gourmet aficionada - who doesn’t want to visit noisy family restaurants - the kitchen and its utensils have seen better days! A contemporary dweller with an affection for dining home on a warm summers night in front of the spectacular view of nightly fisher boats could hope for an assortment of the good and sophisticated designs of all the famous Italian kitchenware brands…the list of designers and brands are long and exemplified by the same high quality as the villa’s architecture. The Sicilian summer - according to Giacomo - stretch from May to October and Giacomo owes all that support architecture and nature lovers can offer to keep an important architectural heritage alive. Villa Capo Zafferano is a place with a soul and a place to explore all your senses! My wife and I were fortunate to get the chance rent this Sicilian architectural pearl for just a too short week! Carsten & Bodil