Milan, Italy - 2005 / 2007
The Marani Flagship showroom in Milan was developed after taking careful consideration of all the client's requirements.
Five minutes walk from Milan's 'Duomo Cathedral', the 350 sqm rooms are part of a 'Milanese Medieval' urban building. Much of the building's 1600s nobility had been lost due to previous alterations and the Matteo Fantoni Studio succeeded in restoring it's original grandness by combining modern architectural design with the original beauty of the old structure.
With a view to enhancing the designer's fashion collection, glass, stainless steel, white laquered panels, built in furniture and white 'terrazzo' were all purposely chosen. In addition, particular attention was also paid to the distribution of natural and artificial light in order to minimize energy consumption.
Two main rooms are dedicated to showing and selling the collection, one facing the internal courtyard, the other facing a typical narrow Milanese street.
A faceted glass mezzanine floor within the 5 metre height of the rooms provides an additional area for meeting rooms and open plan offices.
Original pink granite columns, now totally enhanced and displayed in all their beauty, harmonise perfectly with the original 'cassettoni' wooden ceiling and the newly designed angular mezzanine and stairs.
Working with old structures, bringing out the original materials, adding new architectural elements whilst respecting history, all white paying attention to the smallest details, is the kind of difficult challenge that we relish.
