Taormina-Giardini Naxos

In December 1925, the Ministry of Communications approved the final project for the construction of a new passenger building for the Taormina station, replacing the previous one. The old building, inaugurated in 1866, was an extremely simple rectangular structure, certainly not up to the expectations of the many Central European tourists who arrived in Sicily after admiring the blooming almond trees and the smoking Etna in the drawings of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc or Gustav Klimt.

The new station evokes the poetic style of Arab-Norman architecture and also incorporates some details, both medieval and neo-Gothic, from the most important buildings in the city, alternating large windows and lavish chandeliers with wrought-iron Liberty-style embellishments.

This style finds its highest expression in the first-class waiting room, with decorations inspired by the Corvaja and Duchi di Santo Stefano palaces of Taormina, and with the original 19th-century dark wood furniture.