La Velarca, the houseboat designed by the Milan-based studio BBPR (Gian Luigi Banfi, Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Enrico Peressutti and Ernesto Nathan Rogers) in 1959, has today returned, after a lengthy restoration, to its original mooring in Ossuccio, on Lake Como, facing the Isola Comacina.Not a simple houseboat, but a small masterpiece of modern architectural history, signed by the very same architects behind the Torre Velasca — deliberately echoed in the name “Velarca.” Not merely a holiday home, but a special place imagined by Fiammetta and Emilio, the parents of Aldo Norsa, designed to welcome, host and bring together friends and acquaintances who already frequented their Milanese home — among them, great figures of Italian culture, starting with the Milanese architects Rogers, Peressutti and Belgiojoso themselves, but also Roberto Sambonet, Gio Ponti, Gillo Dorfles, Eugenio Montale, Lucio Fontana, Umberto Eco, Cesare Musatti and others.La Velarca was designed and built between 1959 and 1961 by the BBPR studio, commissioned by Emilio and Fiammetta Norsa to create a floating residence. The result is a true work of architecture and a design object, one that reflects in its forms and spaces the hallmarks of the Milanese studio's approach: a sensitivity to the environment, an interpretation of place, and a commitment to design quality and construction precision that make la Velarca extraordinarily modern while at the same time anchored to the past. And it is indeed in the past and history of Lake Como that la Velarca is rooted: to design it, a living volume was added to the hull of a 19-metre ancient Larian gondola, the “Corriera Tremezzina,” which had been crossing Lake Como since 1911, carrying goods and passengers.The restoration carried out by FAI began in 2013 and involved reconstruction, restoration, recovery and functional adaptation work, requiring a very long time and considerable resources.The investigations quickly revealed that the hull — the structural element of la Velarca — was beyond restoration due to severe deterioration. This led to the decision to tow the boat from Ossuccio to Maslianico, to the Ernesto Riva shipyard, in order to proceed with the reconstruction of the hull and the fore and aft decks, and with the recovery — also involving substantial integration — of the living volume above. The interiors were the subject of a second phase of works: partly rebuilt, partly restored and completed with the utmost fidelity to what had been preserved or was visible in historical photographs. Furnishings, functional details and even objects were recovered or added to restore la Velarca to its original character as a home, its full functionality and the atmosphere of a bygone era.