Villa Favorita

Villa Favorita in Lugano is a 17th-century lakeside villa with extensive grounds in the Castagnola district, in the Swiss canton of Ticino. For decades it housed one of the world's great private art holdings, the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection.

What is Villa Favorita?

The estate is a cluster of buildings and gardens between central Lugano and Castagnola. Architectural write-ups count thirteen Romantic-style structures in the park, built between 1687 and 1932. They include the 17th-century Casa Glorietta and the picture gallery (Pinakothek) of 1933, put up to display the paintings. Once a self-contained property, it is now ringed by mid-20th-century housing but still keeps its garden sloping toward Lake Lugano.

Why is it famous?

Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza bought the villa in the 1930s and built up a collection tracing the history of European art. His son Hans Heinrich expanded it several times over, to roughly 1,600 works, and the villa could no longer hold them. A foundation was created in Lugano in 1986 to keep the paintings open to the public and to stage exhibitions. Most of the works moved to Madrid in the early 1990s, and the Spanish state bought the collection in 1993. The Lugano gallery closed in 2002.

What happened to the villa afterwards?

Hans Heinrich's widow, Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, sold the gallery grounds to an investor from Ticino, who in 2009 commissioned Herzog & de Meuron to draw up apartment proposals. In 2015 the rest of Villa Favorita was bought by an Italian industrial family. It no longer operates as a museum.

How to plan a trip to the area

Castagnola lies on the eastern shore of Lugano and forms part of the city. Pair a walk along this stretch of the lake with the nearby parks and waterfront. Treat the villa itself as a stop in art and architecture history: seen from outside, it shows how the Swiss lakes' wealthy elite once lived.

Frequently asked questions

Can you still see the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection at Villa Favorita? No. Most paintings went to Madrid, where the Spanish state has owned them since 1993. The Lugano gallery shut in 2002.

Where is Villa Favorita? In the Castagnola district of Lugano, on Lake Lugano in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland.

Who owns the villa today? In 2015 the remaining estate was bought by an Italian industrial family. The former gallery grounds had earlier been sold to a Ticino investor.

What is in the gardens? Thirteen Romantic buildings from 1687 to 1932, including the 17th-century Casa Glorietta and the 1933 gallery.