“The villa [...] satisfies a need that never changes, a demand that is not material but rather psychological and ideological, and thus immune to the influences of evolving societies and technologies. It fulfills desires and visions unattainable in reality.” 
This is how James S. Ackerman, one of the most prominent scholars of villa typology, introduces the subject in The Villa, immediately pointing out that this “architectural and ideological paradigm” exists precisely because of the contrast between the countryside and the city.

The need for more space, to escape the hustle and bustle of urban life and reconnect with nature is in stark contrast to the micro-apartments presented in our 2024 selection. Many of the villas featured in Domus this year are set in bucolic landscapes, isolated and far from the chaos of the metropolis, nestled in Mexican forests, small towns in the Italian countryside or Mediterranean islands.

Some have hosted fashion shows, such as Jacquemus at Villa Malaparte; others have been repurposed for temporary events, such as Villa Bagatti Valsecchi, built in the 19th century, and Villa Borsani, built during the Second World War - both in Varedo and central to Milan Design Week 2024. Others are house-museums that stand out because they were designed by famous architects or are owned by passionate art collectors.

Finally, there are the most talked-about: celebrity mega-mansions, put back on the market after their owners' reconsiderations (or deaths), often languishing unsold or with a cursed history, like Tadao Ando's project, gutted and rendered unrecognisable by Kanye West.

The 850-square-meter villa is conceived as an intervention deeply rooted in the natural environment, while standing out from the formal language of the surrounding hotels and residences, which are, fortunately, not too densely packed in this corner of the island. Read also

Las Rocas is a residential complex of four villas perched on Mirador La Peña, a promontory that stretches from the Mexican city of Valle de Bravo in the middel of a lake, towards an imposing artificial dam. In order to place each of the four houses on the steep slopes of the cape, the designers conducted a detailed and careful analysis of the site, minimising the impact of the constructions on streams, rocks and vegetation. Read also

The New Yorker has revealed details of the interior demolition of the Malibu mansion the rapper bought in 2021. It is now up for sale in a completely different state. The popular American magazine The New Yorker reported a detailed account of the demolition of the house, through the revelations of the contractor Tony Saxon, who carried out the renovation work. Kanye West bought the mansion in 2021 for the sum of $57.3 million from Richard Sachs, a financier and art collector. Just in '21 Tadao Ando was guest editor of Domus. Read also

Italy Sotheby’s International Realty has put La Grotta Rosa up for sale, a villa designed in 1972 by architect and designer Gae Aulenti on the Amalfi Coast, in Conca dei Marini. Articulated on three different levels connecting the coastal road to the seaside, accessible via a private elevator, this residence spans 500 square meters of interior spaces with 6 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, and a pool partially embedded in a tuff cave. Read more

Le Corbusier already knew this when, in 1911, in his “Journey to the East” to discover the roots of building, from the Balkans via Turkey and Greece and returning via Italy, he saw in the elementary geometries without any decorative apparatus, in the flat roofs, in the “ecstatic” dialogue with the light, in the pure white of spontaneous Mediterranean architecture, the founding principles of his own vision on modern architecture: the Mediterranean vernacular has been and still is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for design, from the 19th century to the present day. Read more