Villa Saldarini in Baratti, in the province of Piombino, is one of Italy’s best examples of zoomorphic architecture, stemming from the creativity of a visionary designer and of a patron of the arts who loved to dream and hated to conform. It comes to no surprise that, over the years, it was renamed The Dinosaur House or Whale House.

Architect Vittorio Giorgini built the house in 1962 for Salvatore Saldarini, an entrepreneur in Como. His idea was to give life to a zoomorphic building that could fit in with the surrounding natural environment with its continuous lines. The structure was based on layers of galvanized welded mesh covered in cement. While questioned at first, the project’s stability was confirmed by testing it with twice the normal load.