Velarca
A modernist cabin built onto the hull of a 1911 Lake Como cargo boat: the Velarca is a house that floats, designed by the architects of Milan’s Torre Velasca.
At a glance
The Velarca is a house on a boat, moored on the western shore of Lake Como at Ossuccio, in the municipality of Tremezzina, opposite the Isola Comacina. In 1959 Emilio and Fiammetta Norsa asked the Milanese studio BBPR — then just finished with the Torre Velasca — to turn a working lake boat into a holiday home. The architects kept the nineteen-metre hull of an old cargo vessel and set a low, glazed living cabin on top. Completed around 1961, the Velarca stayed in the Norsa family until 2011, when it passed to the Fondo Ambiente Italiano. Restored, it is moored again at its old anchorage.
Key facts
- Location: moored at Ossuccio, Tremezzina, Lake Como, Lombardy — opposite the Isola Comacina
- What it is: a floating house built on the hull of a lake cargo boat
- Architects: studio BBPR (Banfi, Belgiojoso, Peressutti, Rogers)
- Built: 1959–1961, for Emilio and Fiammetta Norsa
- Original hull: the “Corriera Tremezzina”, a 19-metre Lake Como boat in service from 1911
- Given to the FAI: 2011, by Aldo and Maria Luisa Norsa
History
For most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, goods and people crossed Lake Como by boat. One of them was the Corriera Tremezzina, a nineteen-metre lake barge in service from 1911. When its working life ended, its hull found an unexpected second use.
In 1959 Emilio and Fiammetta Norsa commissioned the Milanese practice BBPR — Gian Luigi Banfi, Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Enrico Peressutti and Ernesto Nathan Rogers — to make them a floating summer home. The firm had just completed the Torre Velasca, one of the landmarks of post-war Milanese architecture. For the Norsas they did something far smaller and stranger: they set a light, glazed living volume on the old hull, fitted it out for family and guests, and named it the Velarca. It was finished around 1961.
The boat stayed with the Norsa family for half a century. In 2011 Aldo and Maria Luisa Norsa gave it to the Fondo Ambiente Italiano with its original furnishings. After a long restoration the Velarca returned to its mooring off Ossuccio; its lakeside garden opened in 2026.
What you see
From the shore the Velarca is unmistakable: a long dark hull carrying a low cabin under a pale canopy, moored among the lakefront houses opposite the Isola Comacina. It reads at once as a boat and as a small modern house.
Inside, the BBPR design shows its hand — compact, well-lit rooms fitted to the narrow hull, with the lake on both sides. The furnishings are those the Norsas used. The setting does much of the work: the wooded slopes of the Tremezzina behind, the island and the open water in front.
Practical information
- A FAI property; check FAI for opening times, booking and how the boat and garden are visited
- Moored on the lake — access depends on the FAI’s arrangements
- Easy to combine with the Isola Comacina and the Tremezzina shore
- Allow about an hour
Getting there
Ossuccio lies on the western shore of Lake Como, in the municipality of Tremezzina, between Lenno and Sala Comacina. Como, with its trains from Milan, is about thirty kilometres south; the western shore is served by the lake road and by the lake boats. The Velarca is moored on the lakefront, opposite the Isola Comacina.
Nearby
- The Isola Comacina, the lake’s only island
- The Sacro Monte di Ossuccio (UNESCO World Heritage)
- Villa del Balbianello, Lenno
Sources
- Fondo Ambiente Italiano (FAI)
- Il Giornale dell’Architettura
- Artribune
- ANSA
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