Casa Walser is located in the terraced vineyard below Loco – a cube of exposed concrete with a pyramid roof, austere and clear. From the outside, the house appears modest, almost introverted. But upon entering, one experiences a spatial choreography: a path from the village leads across a footbridge to the upper floor and continues spirally inside – down through the house and out into the valley.
Truthfulness
Snozzi said: “Nature tolerates nothing but the truth”. The house does not pretend to be something it is not. No folkloric wooden chalet, no false adaptation. Instead: raw concrete in light grey on the outside, precise geometry, black steel frames. And yet – or perhaps because of this – the house blends into the landscape. It stands out in order to enter into dialogue.
Framed views
The upper floor revolves around a central airspace – a gallery that runs around the void on three sides. Three round windows like portholes: one facing the village, one facing the wooded slope, one facing the pergola. The landscape is not consumed, but framed – “as if seen through binoculars,” wrote the magazine Häuser in 1990. Each view is a deliberate staging.
One flight of stairs down, the house opens up to the valley: a large semicircular glazing in the loggia, protected by clear vertical and horizontal lines that “cut out the best of the outside”. In front of it is the dining table, in a privileged position. From the loggia, a terraced path leads to the pergola – another framed space, between the vineyard and the open countryside.
Black and white
Inside, there is radical clarity: everything is strictly black and white. White walls, white ceramic floors, black window frames, black doors. The furniture: Italian design from the 1980s, timeless and functional. Only in the bedrooms at the rear do colours add accents – turquoise, pink and blue in the style of Le Corbusier. Nothing distracts from what really matters: space, light, view.
Retreat and warmth
The Valle Onsernone is one of the quietest valleys in Ticino. The house reinforces this tranquillity – it is a retreat, a place of power.
Suitable for year-round living, the underfloor heating keeps the house warm in winter, while the open fireplace in the kitchen blazes like in old Ticino houses. The contrast between modern austerity and archaic warmth is only apparent. The two belong together – grey concrete on the outside and pure black and white on the inside, geometry and landscape, asceticism and sensuality.
The house asks no questions. It is an answer.