Visually striking materials

While respecting tradition, the project by Michele Vitaloni of Charmitaliastudio gives a personal identity to a villa in Forte dei Marmi, where materials play an important decorative role.


Forte dei Marmi is a special place, suspended between past and future, which still retains the charm and renown of its golden age. A stroll through its streets allows you to rediscover its historic family villas built in past centuries by the upper middle class and by the magnates of Italian industry, frequented by intellectuals of the time such as Carrà, De Chirico, Papini, Soffici and Moravia, just to name a few.


Designing a new building in such a traditional context therefore undeniably requires a certain degree of balance. Villa Anna is a good example: the project by Michele Vitaloni of Charmitaliastudio – created in collaboration with Studio Mattugini – breaks from the strict conventions of Forte dei Marmi architecture to create a contemporary, minimalist building that perfectly blends into the landscape.


Respect for tradition is reflected in the colours and use of warm materials such as marble, stone and wood in the interiors, seemingly in contrast, but in fact in harmony, with the pure white of the façades. The large windows, which create a seamless link between indoors and outdoors, flood the spaces with natural light that changes with the hours and seasons.


The ground floor is a generous space that unites the social areas – living room, dining room and kitchen – enhanced with columns, containers and planters covered with “Rigato MV”, used as decorative elements in a deliberately minimal environment. The ceiling features an original interplay of wooden strip tiles, which run from horizontal to vertical to define the cantilevered metal staircase leading to the bedrooms on the upper floor.


The choice of the Frappuccino texture for the Grande Marble Look porcelain stoneware slabs is another striking decorative element that stands out in the white space, used on the walls adjacent to the staircase and in a wide band, almost a work of art, accompanying the length of the sofas. Available in various sizes, from 120x120 cm to the very large 160x320 cm, the collection, in
25 glossy, matt and satin variants, reproduces the incredible vein patterns of the finest marbles and Venetian Terrazzo with a modern twist obtained with Marazzi’s increasingly sophisticated digital technology, produced in a purpose-built factory. Thanks to its eco-friendly quality, which covers the entire production cycle and is guaranteed by the most important international certifications, Grande Marble Look, like other Marazzi collections, contributes to obtaining LEED® credits for sustainable building design.     

Photo credits: Matteo Andrei