Text: Anna Mazzotti, Catherine WagnerPhoto: Massimo Listri (Massimo Listri)
Both a tailor and a priest...
Types of Design «In a past life I was"an ancient Egyptian priest" reads the first sentence on the official website of the Italian architect and designer Carlo Rampazzi. Many do not even get to the second sentence. But those who are not embarrassed by such an eccentric statement can consider that they have passed the test. They are worthy of becoming a client of Rampazzi. The style of one of the most famous designers in Europe requires a certain inclination towards adventurism from the customer. The client should not be afraid of surprises. He should be mentally prepared for the fact that sooner or later a mixture of colors, eras and styles will reign in the house - just as wild and cheerful as in the furniture collections designed by Rampazzi for the extravagant Italian brand Colombostile. (By the way, the furniture from these collections wouldn't be complete without it!) "My interiors and furniture change the lives of their owners." This is exactly what happened to the house of a Belgian businessman living in the village of Heusden near Ghent. This spacious building with a beautiful garden looked unusually dull inside: beige walls, classic furniture with beige upholstery, arranged in neat rows, as if with a ruler... Here and there, reproductions of Modigliani hung on the walls, but they were clearly not enough to breathe life into the beige silence. However, at first, the owners were quite happy with all this...
Interior of the villa
Photo 1.The ivory-colored walls of the living-dining room provide a neutral backdrop for the designer pieces, including a leather armchair and a coffee table with a Macassar top from the La Nuova Tradizione collection, designed by Carlo Rampazzi for Colombostile, silk-covered swivel chairs by Studio Most and a Vibieffe sofa upholstered in Decortex fabric. Photo 2. The abundance of upholstered furniture in the study encourages relaxation rather than work. In the foreground is an armchair from the La Nuova Tradizione collection, designed by Carlo Rampazzi for Colombostile, and by the window is a Minotti sofa upholstered in green-dyed pony skin. Photos 3, 4. Dining area. The cabinet with leather-covered doors from the Recupluxe collection and the table from the Constantino collection were designed by Carlo Rampazzi and Sergio Villa for their brand CRANDSV. Leather-covered chairs by Hurel surround the table.
Optical illusion
“The interior, like clothes, is good only whenwhen it suits the owners." As often happens, the renovation began unexpectedly for all involved. The client commissioned Rampazzi to build a pavilion over the outdoor pool so that it could be used all year round. The architect accomplished the task, while still maintaining the illusion of open space. He brought in his long-time partner, decorator Sergio Villa, who decorated the roof with trompe l'oeil painting. It imitates fabric stretched over the rafters, with the panels diverging in the middle of the roof, and a blue sky with light clouds peeking out between them. The only unglazed wall also features the sky, across which wild birds are flying. The owner of the house was delighted and immediately suggested that the designer redesign the entire house. "Initially, I was just going to make the interior warmer with color," recalls Rampazzi. — But as the work progressed, the client got a taste for it and began to demand more and more serious changes. In the end, he actually became my co-author». Each room had its own color scheme. Yellow and orange reign in the living room, green and ochre shades in the study. It took the longest to choose the color for the owners' bedroom and bathroom. In the end, they settled on a combination of red and gold. Boring armchairs and sofas were replaced with ironic objects designed by Rampazzi and Villa (they often work together not only on interiors, but also on furniture collections). In the decoration of the house, the designers did without trompe l'oeil paintings, but they still used optical illusions: to visually enlarge the small hallway, its walls and door were covered with mirror foil.
Photo 1.The highlight of the kitchen is the Fazzoletto dining table by Studio Most with a draped leg. Around the table are Knoll International chairs finished with silver leaf. Sergio Villa painted one of the chairs with a spaghetti motif. Photo 2. The pool area is decorated with a console with forged legs and a green marble top and a sculptural vase by Selvaggio. Painted metal silhouettes of ducks are attached to the wall. The paintings were done by Sergio Villa based on a design by Carlo Rampazzi. Photo 3. The master bedroom is illuminated by table lamps from the 1940s. The bedside tables and bench, upholstered in patinated leather, are made of larch based on a sketch by Carlo Rampazzi. Photo 4. Sergio Villa covered the door and ceiling in the hallway with silver leaf. Above the chest of drawers from the Bleu series, design by Carlo Rampazzi for Colombostile, — painting by Andre von Schulenberg.
What's the secret?
The strengths of this interior
- Masterful Use of Color in Every Room— its own color theme. The abundance of bright colors does not tire the eye, since all shades are borrowed from nature. The living-dining room is dominated by the colors of grass and autumn leaves. The red-gold bedroom seems to be flooded with rays of the setting sun.
- Unity of style This interior was designed only bytwo people - Carlo Rampazzi and Sergio Villa. And it is not surprising that all the items, no matter how extravagant they may look separately, are quite harmoniously combined with each other. Here, furniture from Colombostile and Crandsv is used (a complex abbreviation that can be simply deciphered: Carlo Rampazzi AND Sergio Villa). Many accessories were developed in the Rampazzi design bureau, located in the Swiss city of Ascona and called Selvaggio. The carpets are made according to sketches by the same Rampazzi. The paintings were done by Sergio Villa.
- No boundary between house and garden Boundariesbetween the interior and exterior spaces are transparent - in the literal sense of the word. Large windows overlooking the garden allow the owners to feel at one with nature at any time of year. And the green carpet in the dining room visually echoes the carpet of the neatly trimmed lawn.
- Sense of humor Spaghetti painted on the back of a kitchen chair, metal ducks on the wall of the pool... There's definitely no getting bored in this house.
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