For a fluid, pleasantly textured home

The idea of a warm, reassuring, welcoming home that evocatively references the roots of the modern movement in the United States, where houses are open plan, with large, friendly, interconnected rooms and a mingling of indoor and outdoor spaces. This is the Molteni&C|Dada home interpreted by Vincent Van Duysen: “lines and forms”, the brand’s art director explains, “seek out the light, for a continual dialogue with space and people. Products are designed to provide pleasure and happiness and to fully embrace nature: air, light and oxygen.”

As finishes, Van Duysen has a preference for pure materials with a sensual “feel”. And colours that remind us of the natural world. Light becomes an integral part of the room’s design, since it modulates our perception of it. Just as in ‘40s and ‘50s Los Angeles architect villas, ground plans are constructed around continuous pathways, with doors largely rejected in favour of passageways and internal walls to divide up spaces. Therefore, walls become the protagonists of space, and as such they are covered with narrative and decorative materials like wood and ceramics. The ultra-glossy Crogiolo Lume size 6x24 cm tiles, with slight variations in colour and surface which create a vibrant, dynamic finish, were the material chosen. As individually different as hand-made pieces, Lume tiles give the wall a constantly varied surface, almost a work of art, which interacts with the iridescence of natural daylight - the distinguishing characteristic of the entire project.

The Crogiolo Lume collection was selected in three different colours – White, Greige and Black – to evoke natural impressions such as the green of moss, the white of natural stones and sands or the black of lava and dark soil. This underlines the indoor-outdoor continuity central to the entire styling. What’s more, Crogiolo Lume was chosen for its reminders of the hand-made majolica tiles typical of ‘40s Italian architecture. Here they are referenced in more subdued shades instead of the typical bright colours.

There is another link to the history of Italian architecture in the choice of Mystone Travertino, in Silver colour, used for the floors of the living areas and kitchen. Travertine is a material that has been in use since Roman times, and which also played a central role in the Renaissance and Baroque periods and, more recently, in Rationalism. A tradition that embodies the Italian spirit and is therefore very close to the identity of Molteni&C|Dada. Here, the porcelain stoneware is pleasantly matt, with a soft, textured feel and look that recalls the unfinished natural material. This choice is also a sustainable one, since ceramics do not deplete natural stone quarries and the composition of many Marazzi collections uses more than 40% recycled materials. Mystone Travertino corresponds to this ideal of a home in close touch with nature. “For a home to be “felt”, soft and true. With a concept of comfort that is visually expressed also through materials’ tactile appeal,” Vincent Van Duysen concludes.