The Art of Water

A relaxed intermingling of sinuous Art Nouveau and geometric Art Deco defined the appearance of Europe’s villes d’eaux in the first third of the twentieth century. In the 1930s, Italy’s Duce, Benito Mussolini, dreamed of turning Castrocaro – near his own birthplace – into one of Italy’s most prestigious spa towns. In September 1938, the spa’s Padiglione delle Feste – the Party Pavilion – was inaugurated. Prince Umberto of Savoy was in attendance, but not the man who had built and decorated the place: Tito Chini. The regime thought of it as a showpiece; Chini conceived of it as a Gesamtkunstwerk – a total work of art – but one he hadn’t completed. And, as he wrote in a letter, he could not tolerate the idea of “half-inaugurating” something still, to his mind, imperfect. Today we can see how the rational yet luxurious quality of the now complete Pavilion – an Art Deco masterpiece, flawless in its interplay of brick and variegated marble, its richly detailed decoration of cards, constellations, and more – fully justified his indignation and his absence.