Grand Hotel

Image of the external facade of the Rimini hotel. Photograph taken by Andrea Speziali. Paolito Somazzi was born on 4 July 1873 in Montevideo, where his father Gaudenzio, born in 1845 in Barbengo and residing in the capital of Uruguay, is active as a builder. Gaudenzio Somazzi returned to Switzerland before 1879, the year in which his third son Ezio was born in Barbengo, settled in Viale Stefano Franscini in Lugano, and opened a construction company. Paolito studied at the Technical School of Winterthur where he obtained the architect diploma. He initially works in his father's company, then, since 1898 he signs the first projects as a freelancer. His numerous works have been documented since that date. In Lugano, in addition to the various single-family villas, he rebuilds houses in the historic center such as the two Grecchi Luvini Perseghini palaces, and creates multi-family residences. He built three rental houses in via Lucchini alone, a new commercial residential street opened on the initiative of the Municipality. It also sets up the offices of the first city banks and designs some industries, such as the Chocolate Factory in Besso. Paolito Somazzi is well known as a designer of large hotels. In Lugano he built the Parkhotel, Continental and Bristol. It also expands and modernizes the Grand Hotel Splendide. In Brissago he builds the Grand Hotel. He designs other large unrealized hotels on the Campo dei Fiori (Varese), in Gravedona, Pesaro and Nice. In 1908 the Milanese hotel and restaurant company SMARA, rented the Kursaal and all the beach infrastructures from the Municipality of Rimini. Somazzi is in charge of modernizing them and building a hotel. He conceives a wide-ranging urban project that also includes the complete modernization of the Kursaal and the construction of a theater. Only the hotel is built. Inaugurated in 1908, the Grand Hotel in Rimini is the best known work of Paolito Somazzi. As the first renowned architect in the city of Romagna he was also entrusted with the construction of the local Cassa di Risparmio, an imposing building for which an entire square was redesigned. After the death of his father in 1910, Paolito also became responsible for the construction company. In 1913 he won the second prize in the competition for the Palazzo delle Dogane in Lugano, and was entrusted with the task of building the building. He did not have time to get the final project approved, in fact, on March 29, 1914, he died in a road accident in Rivera on Monte Ceneri while he was returning from Lugano to Locarno by car. Most of Paolito Somazzi's production is in an eclectic style, some works however have Art Nouveau characteristics, in particular Villa Thiele from 1906 in Lugano (destroyed). Some liberty elements borrowed from the Viennese Secession are also moderately proposed in the facades of its hotels.