Yanez’s house was the image I had in mind while designing Anna and Marco’s home in Rome. Yanez is Sandokan’s brother in Salgari’s The Pirates of Malaysia. The privateer had a home that gathered items plundered from ships from all over the world—furniture, carpets, books, lamps, furnishings, and even an organ—forming a coherent whole despite their diverse origins.
The description of Yanez de Gomera’s house is an extraordinary passage that I recommend everyone read. Much like the Pirate’s hideout, this house in Rome’s Monti district was intended to house objects, furniture, lamps, appliances, and much more from Anna and Marco’s “previous” lives, finding a common synthesis within this space through a theme capable of containing them all.
We are in a historic building, characterized by walls over 60 cm thick that showcase the heavy structural load of the construction. The overall space was a succession of rooms lacking a common thread to tie them together into a coherent sequence.
It was necessary to reconstruct a new layout to make the home’s floor plan clear and livable; this goal was achieved through the meticulous construction of the space’s main element: the “heart” of the home, the pulsing center that every domestic space should have. Through a significant structural intervention, which involved opening a large passage in a 70 cm thick wall, we connected the new living area with the kitchen, creating an inseparable whole that constitutes the center we were looking for: the heart of the home.
From this space, the other rooms emerge centripetally: the master bedroom—comprising the bedroom, walk-in closet, and master bathroom—the utility rooms, and the preschool-aged daughter’s bedroom. (For other master bedrooms, see also our projects Contemporary Lines for a Warm Home, A Welcoming Home, and Renovating by Creating Fluid Spaces).
The terrace also originates from this central space and extends on the opposite side of the private rooms. (If you want more ideas for your terrace, see also Creating and Furnishing a Terrace and Home Renovation for a Family). The architectural theme tying all the rooms together could only be one: history. The extraordinary existing brick walls were thus highlighted, illuminated, and made the protagonists in contrast with the troweled false walls lit by colored LEDs.
The contrast between contemporary technology and history was thus extended from the fixtures to the surrounding walls, emphasizing it and making it even more perceptible. (This antithesis between history and modernity is also present in our Genoa headquarters). The same relationship of contrast between technological modernity and tradition was finally echoed in the kitchen: a space designed down to the smallest detail in close collaboration with Anna and Marco.
This room was built without using modular furniture. Instead, the kitchen was built entirely in masonry on-site, coated in resin, with countertops made of exposed wood and Sardinian granite. In this context, professional appliances by Franke and Steel transform the space into a highly technological setting where one feels as if they are in a true domestic “cooking machine.” Not a cold, aseptic “restaurant-style” kitchen, but a comfortable yet technologically advanced environment. A place where, through the preparation of food, one rediscovers their intimate relationship with nature.
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