Palazzo Verbania, Luino’s Belle Époque symbol, is one of the town’s most admired buildings. Designed by the architect Giuseppe Petrolo, it was built in 1905 as a Kursaal: a venue for concerts, balls and cafés. It was requested by a rapidly growing local elite eager to bring to Luino the new artistic, social, and tourist trends of the early twentieth century.
The building is one of the earliest Art Nouveau structures on Lake Maggiore, featuring a terrace overlooking the water, large windows, elegant painted friezes, and wrought-iron balustrades. In 1927 it was converted into a hotel, the Verbania, which operated until 1971.
Since 1975, the building has taken on a new identity as an exhibition and conference center. After its restoration completed in 2019, which further enhanced its spaces, it became home to the Tourist Information Office and to the Vittorio Sereni and Piero Chiara Archive which houses a collection of manuscripts and documents relating to the two writers from Luino who celebrated its charm.
Today, it is a cultural hub open to the public, offering exhibition spaces and conference rooms.

TERRAZZA

Improvvisa ci coglie la sera.
Più non sai
dove il lago finisca;
Un murmure soltanto
sfiora la nostra vita
sotto una pensile terrazza.

Siamo tutti sospesi
a un tacito evento questa sera
entro quel raggio di
torpediniera
che ci scruta poi si gira e se ne va.

da V. Sereni, Frontiera (1941).

The poem was composed on a summer evening in 1937. Vittorio Sereni was with his friends Claudio Barigozzi and Giosuè Bonfanti. He wrote the text on a postcard, which was unfortunately later destroyed.
The “hanging terrace” (“pensile terrazza”) is probably the terrace of Palazzo Verbania, a usual meeting place for the poet in Luino. However, many years later, Claudio Barigozzi suggested that it might instead have referred to the terrace of the nearby café by the ferry dock, another favourite gathering place for the group of friends.