Fara Tower, which majestically stands on the Ligurian beach of the municipality of Chiavari since 1935, is the protagonist of a photographic project following its renovation that does not distort, but enhances, the rationalist architecture by which it is characterized.
Torre Fara, involved in one of the renovation projects of the municipality that involved several local professionals, becomes the subject of the photographic project by Gianluca Giordano due to its interesting history and successful renovation. Built in 1935 by order of the National Fascist Party to house a children's colony, it was inaugurated and named after General Gustavo Fara.
After hosting children from all over Italy for two years, and serving as a meeting place, open-air cinema, and other avant-garde services, Torre Fara was later designated to be a war hospital and then a refuge for Istrian exiles. Finally, after briefly becoming a youth hostel named "Faro," it was left abandoned until it was purchased by Fara srl in 2015, marking the beginning of the recovery works.
The renovation of Torre Fara, carried out by architects Enrico Pinna from Genoa and Sonja Serventi, with surveyor Alessio Gotelli from Chiavari, and executed by the companies Edilido srl Artedil from Chiavari, under the supervision of Site Technical Director Adriano Basso, allowed for the monumental recovery of a historic building that today stands as a national example.
Its restoration was carried out under the supervision of the Archaeological Superintendence of Fine Arts and Landscape of Liguria, both to maintain the original color samples unchanged and to reintegrate the aerial paintings that adorned the original structure. In particular, these are the two large mural paintings executed by the painter and decorator Demetrio Ghiringhelli located on the sides of the two main entrances of the current Grand Hotel Fara, occupying the ground floor and the first floor of the tower.
In light of new sustainable approaches, although Torre Fara was built 85 years ago, it still stands today as a symbol of sustainability. In addition to its low energy consumption, the heat pumps that utilize seawater allow for the abandonment of fossil fuels: an architecture that seems to transcend time.
Following the renovation, the building now houses a hotel on the ground and first floors, and 18 luxurious residential apartments on the upper part of the tower, along with a restaurant and a lounge & bistro. Today, as a monumental symbol of Chiavari, Grand Hotel Torre Fara stands as a masterpiece of recent architecture that has been given the opportunity for rebirth thanks to the vision of those who believed in this project.
