INTERIOR

Renovation of the apartment in Rome. Consistent with the baroque ornamentation that characterizes Longhi’s façade, the apartment dialogues in a carefree way with the Roman world that surrounds and pervades it, showing off art installations, lighting fixtures, cult furnishings or specifically designed by us

Location: Rome

Year: 2018

Project team: Gabriele Corbo, Jacopo Costanzo, Valeria Guerrisi

Collaborators: Ludovica Marcacci Balestrazzi, Dor Cohen, Anna Papageorgiou, Angela Tanzola

Rhapsody: a piece of music that has no formal structure and expresses strong feelings

The apartment, located in the historic center of Rome – adjacent to the church of Sant’Antonio dei Portoghesi, the work of Martino Longhi the Younger – has been transformed, through a renovation and restoration, into a residence for a young professional. The interiors, crowded with works of art and designer furnishings, become almost an ephemeral apparatus, whose rooms welcome the folies du Roi.

The goal was to outline a rhythmic environment, capable of relating both to the strategic location of the building and to the extravagances of its tenant. The spatial layout, which has remained almost unchanged, is articulated by means of a sequence of rooms, unexpectedly versatile, which allows infinite connections between the rooms. A subdivision by chapters becomes a narrative trick and a key to understanding the apartment. Each room is completed as a closed space, almost in competition with the others. A rhapsody of voices between a luminous marble grit floor and a fine coffered ceiling in chestnut wooden beams, which now gravitate on a surreal abacus of more or less dissonant elements: from minimal to pop, from modern antiques to high tech.

Consistent with the baroque ornamentation that characterizes Longhi’s façade, the apartment dialogues in a carefree way with the Roman world that surrounds and pervades it, showing off art installations, lighting fixtures, cult furnishings already known or site specific designed by us.