Atelier

Street number 28 is a rosso, the red numbering that marks all commercial premises in Florence, and the space is called 28nero: the need to work in a neutral setting merges with the choice of total black, since always the scenographic colour par excellence.

Entering this space, we leave behind the narrow streets of Florence's historic centre. A few steps from Piazza Santa Croce, we find ourselves projected into an almost metaphysical dimension: an art gallery, a garden? We are in a hybrid reality, an atelier that is also everything else.

The premises were once the workshop of an artisan gilder, facing the street, with many open spaces flowing one into another. The entrance area is a citation of the Japanese garden: the floor has been covered with gravel, the iron bio-fireplace with its water-lily basin recalls the four elements; the olive trunk, also dyed black, has been wrapped in a site-specific work by the Chilean artist Marco Esteban Cavallaro. The garden is crossed by a walkway of iron plates, with the Chesterfield sofa and the Parentesi lamp by Achille Castiglioni and Pio Manzù.

The office rooms are preceded by the materials library, where the desk is arranged on a single metal shelf running the whole length of the room, and the iconic Mezzadro stool by Zanotta stands out in orange; iron also shapes the great arched wall at the back, which hides the bathroom.

The renovation of the old workshop has brought back to light vaults, arches, pillars of brick and stone. They have been left exposed, in a contrast between their warm tones and the dramatic effect of black, and they warm the steel chosen for the radiators, designed and custom built from hydraulic pipes.