We sat down with architect Solinas and discussed the restoration of a historic Florentine building: Palazzo Baldovinetti. The result is an exclusive interview that uncovers anecdotes, challenges, and interesting facts about one of the most significant residential transformations of recent years in the Tuscan luxury property market.
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Having experienced the project from the inside, he told us about the journey that transformed a former office building into a unique, multi-layered, and deeply contemporary 790 sqm private residence, respecting its 16th-century history.
This is the rebirth of Palazzo Baldovinetti, as told by the man who designed, oversaw, and brought it to life.
From Office to Private Palazzo: The Challenge of Thinking Big
When discussing the restoration of a historic palazzo in Florence, the first question always concerns the guiding principle. In the case of Palazzo Baldovinetti, that starting point was anything but straightforward. A property registered as office space, its rooms bearing the marks of decades of disjointed interventions, accumulated layer upon layer without any unifying vision.
«The real challenge», Solinas explains, «was to conceive these spaces, which held enormous potential, as a private palazzo in the most noble Florentine tradition. With an entrance gallery, a grand staircase, a formal reception room, bedrooms, and ancillary spaces.»
A vision that cannot be improvised. It requires the ability to see beyond what exists to imagine what could be. And it demands, above all else, the courage to remove: to strip away the superfetations, eliminate incongruous additions, and make room for a shell that could be reread according to the standards of a great private residence.
The result, in the architect’s own words, is a property that today «has a magnificent presence while maintaining a great sense of balance and the qualities of a family home». A tension between grandeur and intimacy that is perhaps the most difficult achievement in high-end residential architecture.
Preserve or Reinterpret? The Hierarchy of Spaces
In such a multi-layered project, every decision is a dialogue with time, carrying with it the weight of what has gone before and the responsibility for what is to come.
Solinas worked with a precise compass: preserve and enhance the existing architectural and decorative elements, demolish where past additions had compromised the quality of the spaces.
«The restoration significantly lightened the pictorial and stone decorations from accumulated dust and the successive interventions of time», the architect explains, «restoring a luminous and unexpectedly modern chromatic range.»
A discovery that transformed entire rooms, beginning with the library on the first floor, where a frescoed ceiling bearing a complex neo-Gothic geometry opens toward a sky of vivid, crystalline blue.
Where, instead, the late nineteenth-century or post-war additions had compromised the integrity of the spaces, Solinas chose, in agreement with the Superintendence for Architectural Heritage (the authority overseeing architectural heritage), the more courageous path: demolition. Among the most significant interventions are the restitution of the original final flight of the sixteenth-century stone staircase and the creation of a bedroom with a sun-filled private terrace and a mezzanine with an internal balcony.
«Courageous decisions», he calls them, but ones that completely transformed the livability of the spaces and offered the pleasure of inhabiting them.»
Alongside the restoration of historic rooms, such as the main hall, the bedroom overlooking Via dei Serragli, and the kitchen, the project also involved the creation of entirely new spaces. The second-floor apartment, all the service areas, and the variety of amenities that are increasingly in demand in the luxury property market were introduced:
- A spa and a gym, housed in two adjoining rooms on the ground floor.
- A wine cellar for tastings, distinguished by a beautiful vaulted ceiling that lends it a naturally evocative character.
Spaces that, as the architect puts it, are «in high demand, more than just desired»: the hallmark of a residence designed to be fully lived in.
All the Project’s Secrets: The Journey
In every great work of architecture, there is an element that eludes the distracted eye yet governs the experience of those who inhabit the space. At Palazzo Baldovinetti, this element is called the journey.
«The true key to reading this project can be summed up in a single word: journey», Solinas reveals. «Without being aware of it, visitors are led to move through the entire property along a guided route, one they don’t consciously perceive, the result of complex and articulated design work.»
The visitor is led, unknowingly, through a precise and considered sequence. The entrance gallery, the ancient atrium, the monumental staircase, the library on the first floor, the hall, and the adjoining rooms. Then, resuming pace, the staircase again, this time upward, to the top floor, described as «more intimate and filled with light».
It is in that moment, at the end of the journey, that the palazzo ceases to be a place to visit and becomes something else. «It is at home», the architect concludes.
A spatial narrative that goes beyond floor plan distribution, built instead through a sequence of emotions: wonder, curiosity, stillness, belonging.
The Rediscovered Frescoes: When Heritage Becomes Value
In the process of rediscovering the painted decorations, Solinas adopts a specific approach. We asked him whether he felt more like a restorer or an interpreter, but the most interesting question, in his view, is another: to what extent did the pre-existing decorations influence the definition and characterisation of the spaces?
«A quality of pre-existing decoration this significant can only enhance spaces that were already remarkable in terms of volume and proportion», the architect observes. «The rooms remain the same, of course, but the experience of being in them changes significantly.»
It is a principle that touches something fundamental in luxury real estate. The value of a space is not measured in square metres or finishes alone, but in the density of experience it is capable of generating. A frescoed ceiling restored to its original colours is not simply beautiful, it is alive. It carries with it centuries of history, a silent dialogue between the hand that painted and the one that now inhabits.
«This is a pleasure I wanted to offer to visitors and future owners», Solinas concludes. A gesture of care toward those who will come.
Quality, Respect, Value: The Essence of Palazzo Baldovinetti
We ask the architect to try and capture the essence of an entire experience into a single answer, and he doesn’t hesitate: quality, respect, value.
Three words that sound like a method:
- The quality of materials, decisions, and the attention with which every detail has been considered.
- The respect for the building’s history, for the institutions charged with its protection, and for those who will live within it.
- The value, not merely financial, but experiential, cultural, and human, that a project of this kind is capable of restoring to the fabric of the city.
Palazzo Baldovinetti is a luxury residence in the historic centre of Florence. But it is also the concrete proof that recovering a historic palazzo with rigour, vision, and sensitivity produces something no new construction could ever replicate. A uniqueness rooted in time, capable of speaking to the present.
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