Campobasso has some really interesting buildings.  Following WWI, there was a surge of construction around the old city center during the 1920s.  You can see examples of the Liberty Style (the Italian version of Art Nouveau) as well as examples of Art Deco.  We had a booklet in our apartment that talked about several of these buildings, so of course I took Chad on walking tours to find them.

The Teatro Savoia is on a small central plaza.  The overall building looks classical, but the ironwork on the entry door and balconies is definitely the art-nouveau-inspired Liberty style.  This building is still in use today as a performance theater.  You can search online to find images of the interior.

Several of the buildings we saw were mansions built by wealthy families.  Across the street from the Teatro Savoia is a house that mixes classical plaster detailing above the windows with Liberty style balcony railings inspired by organic, natural forms.

The Villa Maria takes up an entire city block.  While this house also takes cues from classical architecture, the detailing is Liberty and Art Deco.

At this house, the shorter, three-story part was built in the 1920s.  The taller four-story portion was built in the 1960s, and it wraps around the original house in the form of an L.  You can see a little bit of the 60s-era windows of the sunroom and the porches below it on the back side.  I like that the addition is in harmony with the original, but it also is of the 1960s design era.

This house was built for the family of an engineer.  What’s interesting here is that the brickwork is left exposed, and the decorative elements are made of concrete and aren’t covered in plaster/stucco.  Maybe this was a nod to the owner’s engineering profession, leaving the structural elements exposed to view.

The State Music Conservatory was built during an earlier period, but it looks like window grilles and fences were added in the style of 1920s.

Some of the houses used an original building from an earlier era on the bottom floor(s) and put an addition on top.  Here’s one of them.  Note the Art Deco decorations, more geometric than Art Nouveau.

And then there’s this interesting house in the old city center where the lower two floors were built during a much earlier era and the upper floors were added in the 1920s.  You can clearly see the stylistic difference in the facade design and materialistic treatment.  Even just comparing the balcony railings at the second and third floors, you can see the difference.  The most interesting thing to me is the use of wrought iron “supports” at the eave of the roof.  In other buildings, these supports are made of stone (reference photos of previous houses).  Note that these iron supports are merely decorative, as wrought iron could never support a roof overhang like that.  Instead, there are interior roof beams and rafters which are supporting that roof eave as it extends over the exterior wall.

And finally, to speak more about wrought iron…  Campobasso is known throughout Europe for its ironwork, and four generations of the Tucci family created architectural elements over several decades.  The heyday was in the early 20th century when the foundry designed and built balcony railings (including many of the items seen in previous photos), fences, gates, lamp posts, park benches, and other decorative elements.  Here are some ironworks that we saw on our walks.