The private office of a Roman entrepreneur in the centre of Milanlocated in the Jacini Palace in Via del Lauro 3, has been reorganised and furnished by the Milanese architect and designer Angelo Luca Tacchinardi.
The client entrusted him with the space in which the architect, along with famous pieces by important designers and brands, inserted many furnishing elements directly designed by him, unique pieces with a strong personality, handcrafted in his studio/workshop, which found their rightful place in a period setting, contrasting or in harmony. Each room is characterised by a different style, as you walk down the corridor you pass through different styles and eras. A journey through time between art, architecture and history.
A fluid journey through design. The reception hall and waiting room are in Scala/Milan/Napoleonic style, the operative office in Moorish style, the private office in Rococo style, the meeting room in Napoleonic style.
The reception entrance immediately recalls the sumptuousness of the context. Here, to harmonise with the height of the rooms, a bronze plate vase holder, a hand-rolled satin-finished cone-shaped sheet by Tacchinardi and Nemo's floor lamp model AM2C designed by Franco Albini, F. Helg, A. Piva, M. Albini have been placed to give vertical impetus.
The chosen furnishings are the desk by Estel model Alta Gamma design Estel R&D combined with the armchair by Vitra model Soft Pad Charles and Ray Eames with the storage unit by Estel model Alta Gamma design Estel R&D behind it.
The architectural space has been conceived by connecting the four main rooms in succession, passing spaces freed from intrusion by a fifth, the Wevi bookcase designed by Giuseppe Bavuso for Alivar, which creates the corridor. The bookcase is double-sided, usable on both sides, with a special installation by Tacchinardi inside called Libri consisting of four hundred volumes in various metals and sizes.
Indeed, here the books transcend the very function of the book object by becoming sculptural objects, just as the bookcase is more fifth than bookcase. The functions of the container and consequently also of the contents have been transformed.
The waiting room is furnished with the floor lamp by Nemo model AM2C design Franco Albini, F. Helg, A. Piva, M. Albini, the small sofa by Cassina model 414 Cab design Merio Bellini, the small table by Alivar model art. 789 design Frederick John Kiesler, the chandelier by Nemo model Crown design Jehs + Laub, the small armchair by Moroso model Memory design Tokujin Yoshioka. A second vase holder by Tacchinardi, this time in zinc sheet metal born from the same idea of the rolled bronze sheet.
This is where Tacchinardi's wall sculpture entitled Travi (Beams) was placed, as they are all old wooden beams that have been recovered, cut, cleaned, painted with pigment colours bound with linseed oil and a cold-embossed and soldered copper tube. A concept born from the idea of enhancing this place of work and passage. A place of crossings, of flowing time, highlighted by the use of wood material: the beam slices have in fact been hollowed out, eroded, reduced. Architect Tacchinardi has built copper cages with fixed dimensions that refer to the initial, birth dimensions of the beam, the dimensional difference between the cage and the beam slice, the empty space created is the space of time. Each colour is a time band, a moment, cage half-full piece young, cage half-empty piece old. The work consists of 28 colours/pieces, the sidereal month, the pieces are independent and can be composed at will, just like the infinite possibilities and paths of time.
The Operations Office is illuminated by the chandelier of Nemo model Crown design Jehs + Laub and the furnishings include the Estel table model Sarpi design Carlo Scarpa, the Cassina armchairs model Cab design Mario Ballini, the Cassina sofa model Cab design Mario Bellini and a Venini vase model Fazzoletto design Fulvio Bianconi.
Again a planter holder, this time in copper but always with the same concept, and the pair of twin consoles called "Alluminio", also by Tacchinardi. The two consoles are placed specularly on the two sides of the room facing each other; the line that connects them, perpendicular to the corridor, marks the path and divides the two different functional spaces inside the office room: an operative meeting table and a small living room with a fireplace. They have a dynamic internal shape enclosed in a rectangle, the
shape of the components is continuous variable section.
In the Private Office, we find two more works by Tacchinardi: the wall sculpture, called Tempo, made of wooden strips cut from salvaged beams. The beams were cut into short pieces which in turn were split into small pieces with wedges to tear the wood along the grain, coloured and cut into three-millimetre strips
thickness and then glued as a covering to the wooden shell. This sculpture represents a landscape that changes over time, a flowering field that changes colour with the seasons. The console table called Wood was born from the design idea of creating a support without edges that would break up the monotony of the wall without interfering with the access space to the studio and that would have a warm and natural look to blend with the materials present, original inlaid parquet, polychrome stucco decorations, pink walls. Like the wall rippling to produce a wave that then fades away. It was made with a special flexible multi-ply multiflex panel, rough finish with exposed plastering, the vertical wave panel covers an internal wooden skeleton.
The seats chosen are the small armchairs by Cassina model Cab designed by Mario Bellini around the table, also by Cassina model Boboli designed by Rodolfo Dordoni, to which is matched the table chest of drawers by Estel model Altagamma Design Estel R&D.
The lighting is provided by Nemo's floor lamp model 8-1/2 homage to Costantin Brancusi design Carlo Forcolini and Nemo's lamps Hydra design Carlo Forcolini and Escargot design Le Corbusier.
On the ceiling of the Meeting Room the chandelier by Nemo model Uma design Giancarlo Tintori above the wonderful table by Estel model Sarpi design Carlo Scarpa while the armchairs are by Cassina model Passion designed by Philippe Starck.
By placing in this room the Bombo console table designed and produced by him, architect Tacchinardi makes a provocative and informal choice both in the use of colour and shape in total contrast to the environment, deliberately using an element to shift the focus and play down the context.
Made with an internal wooden frame, siliconised staple padding, and an external cotton canvas painted with pigment and acrylic, it has an almost mouth-like shape, and has been positioned as a weight to unbalance the symmetry of the salon and to shift the centre of gravity away from the rigid, pompous and stuffed atmosphere. A sort of crazy splinter, a vortex that sucks you in, disrupting time, decontextualising, alienating and creating a beautiful emotional impact.
