Padiglione Tavolara

The Eugenio Tavolara Handicraft Pavilion is a building in Sassari’s public gardens designed by Ubaldo Badas. The interior is decorated with sculptures and bas-reliefs by Eugenio Tavolara and ceramics by Giuseppe Silecchia. It was the headquarters of the I.S.O.L.A., an institution of the Sardinian Region. The pavilion is considered the most significant work of Ubaldo Badas and one of the most important in Sardinia.

Following the Neo-Liberty style, Badas used many natural materials, combining coloured tiles and highly decorated railings. Externally, the building is very articulated and animated, with volumes emerging from the main body, a central courtyard housing a ceramic fountain by Giuseppe Silecchia, water features surrounded by other sculptures by Silecchia. Inside, the structure has two floors, both containing exhibition spaces, with an interesting vaulted space on the upper floor. The structure has recently undergone architectural changes to adapt it to new safety regulations, distorting it in some parts, both inside and outside.

The decorations were the work of Eugenio Tavolara, to whom the building was dedicated after his death. It contains a steatite bas-relief depicting the Sardinian cavalcade, located near the staircase leading from the lower to the upper exhibition space; there is a reference to Picasso, with the use of popular and traditional Mediterranean themes.