The apartment, located in a classic building of the Milanese bourgeoisie of the Twenties, is home to a writer collector. The makeover was necessary in order to reorganize in a functional way the huge number of books and objects that couldn’t find a location in the old, obsolete libraries. A wall of the living room had to be torn down to enlarge and redefine the inner spaces.

The art collection had an eclectic taste and included pictures, sculptures, artifacts, antiques from different eras and geographic areas: China, Iranian pottery, lamps, Fornasetti objects and European paintings from 1700 to nowadays, together with a collection of domestic, mythological and prehistoric animals made of every material. Nearly a modern Wunderkammer from 1600 where you could find encyclopedic collections that put together science, nature and art.

Despite being evocative, the ensemble was ruined by an excessive confusion due to the inclination of the owner to keep everything. Room after room it was decided what to keep and what to get rid of, identifying the necessary furniture and trying to put the maximum emphasis on books and collections. In the sitting room, we have inserted new libraries made of bronze aluminum by Dassi Arredamenti, that match the decò forniture. The small table between the sofas has been designed by GFR Architettura and has in its inside six tiles by Gio Ponti. The main wall has been painted with a vivid red (satin series by Oikos). It was tried to create a chromatic and stylistic contrast with works belonging to different artistic contexts: a sculpture and a drawing by Giacomo Manzù, a reproduction of a painting by Pablo Picasso, a work by Umberto Lilloni, a futurist watercolor and an oil painting by Bernardino Luino. From the middle of the wall stands out the canvas “Estinti” by Mario Schifano, a work that it was proposed to the client according to the basis of his passion for the prehistory, the dinosaurs and the historic figurative art. The acrylic and glaze on canvas artwork, painted with quick brush strokes invading also the surface of the frame, belongs to a cycle of 34 paintings with fossils, dinosaurs and prehistorical animals that Schifano realized in 1993 for the exhibition “Reperti” that took place at the Civic Museum of Chiusa.

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