The villa is located in Bardolino (locality Mure) on land belonging to the Ottolenghi family, built in 1974. The lawyer Carlo, at the suggestion of Giuseppe Mazzariol, asked Carlo Scarpa to design a house for his son Alberto. The very configuration of the land overlooking Lake Garda, bordered to the west by a steep slope and to the north and east by an embankment, offered the architect interesting design ideas. A winding staircase descends into the rift, from which the underground rooms are lit, and connects the street with a passageway that surrounds the basement section of the building, almost like a trench. From the vestibule, one passes into an internal pathway that overlooks the living room and disengages the underground chambers, immersed in semi-darkness. The "heart of the house" is a fluid space, punctuated by the succession of columns, the scenographic backdrop of storage units and the fireplace in the bathroom block. It has no well-defined limits: the ceiling bends parallel to the inflections of the roof, the floor is organised in gradients that follow the slope, the openings are aligned in such a way as to allow views that penetrate into the most distant rooms or cross the house from one side to the other. The reflective surfaces of the stained glass windows, mirrors of water (a compositional element typical of Scarpa's architecture), multiply the views.
Pedestrian access to the house, also unusual, is from the municipal road, at the same height as the walkable roof.
Casa Ottolenghi is not open to the public.
