Dozens of large hotels in Italy bear the signature of Marcello Ceccaroli, a well-known Roman architect who travels the world in search of new suggestions. A sector, that of hôtellerie, which is also changing in the sign of art.

Your studio is specialized in hôtellerie. Could you explain us this choice?

It is a path that began immediately after graduation, in 1994, when I moved to Brianza to work with a company that operated in this sector. These were top-level hotels, almost all five-star. I learnt a lot there, starting from the bottom and working my way up to project management. In 1999 I opened my own studio in Rome, and since then we have realised more than 130 structures, including hotels and restaurants, in Italy.

What is the aspect that fascinates you most about this job?

I ended up in the world of hospitality almost by chance, but I have found it really fascinating. It certainly stimulates me from a professional point of view, because the hôtellerie sector is always expanding and gives a lot of visibility: it’s one thing to create a private home, it’s another thing to put your own signature on the design of a hotel, which is frequented by so many people. Moreover, it’s a world that is constantly evolving, with innovative products that open the way to many challenges. Suffice it to say that in the past my studio only dealt with interiors, whereas today they ask us for a complete design: location, architectural, structural, plant engineering and furniture design. I love my job so much, that I have turned my holidays into an opportunity to learn more and more: I travel with my family to visit the most interesting hotels around the world, so I always keep myself updated and inspired.

What has changed in the sector over the years?

Thirty, thirty-five years ago, the hotel was a closed building, whose business was limited to the clientele. Today, hotels have opened up to the city, they organise and host fashion shows, exhibitions, receptions, events. Hotel restaurants, which were previously disregarded by external customers, are now important meeting points. There is also a change taking place in Italy, which comes last in this: in the past, hotels in our country were almost all run by private individuals, while today large chains are spreading, as is already the case abroad.

You mentioned exhibitions. So there is room for art in hotels?

Yes, certainly. Hotels can host temporary exhibitions in their hall, and this is one of the ways in which art can enter this sector. But there is also room for it in the design phase. For example, we recently built a hotel near Termini Station in Rome, and on this occasion we turned to the well-known sculptor Jago, who created a series of works especially for us. I often include works of art in my projects, because this way the hotel guest can enjoy them during their stay.

In this regard, what do you think of the Cinquerosso Arte project?

I must say that I would love to collaborate. I have seen some really interesting works, and I would like to include pieces in my projects sooner or later because it could be a beautiful combination. When I design a hotel, I take a lot of inspiration from the location: I like to think that I can find artworks that give added value consistent with this inspiration, that give character and recognisability. The hotel has only to gain from being able to display an artistic imprint. When I travel, I am happy when a hotel gives me emotions, and what could be more exciting than art?

We are close to the Salone del Mobile in Milan, a very important event for those in the trade. Will you be there?

We have two projects we would like to exhibit. One will be housed in an experimental stand, while the other is a real hotel room, but I cannot say more because they are surprises reserved for the fair.

Architect and designer, Chiara Castelli loves to have trusting and intimate relationships with her clients. Listening and experience are therefore essential requisites for a furnishing with a distinctive personality.

Chiara, would you describe your job? 

I can tell you I am in love with my job. My spare time is always dedicated to the hunt for objects, materials, ideas. I graduated in Architecture at the Politecnico in Milan, but I mainly work as an interior architect; having been born into a family of furniture manufacturers I have always been into Interior Design. I am a bit of an atypical architect, in fact, I have a furniture shop where I sell both furniture that I designed, or unique or rare pieces, not mass-produced. My philosophy is no logo. My clients are not looking for the brand, they are looking for something distinctive, which has my touch or has been carefully selected by me. I follow my client in every aspect of the project, from the organization of the spaces to the choice of fabrics and furnishing items.

In my projects I usually tend towards warm colours,  and I give much importance to the materials; I use a great deal of oxidized metals. I try to be in accord with the ongoing fashion, but I am quite eclectic so I prefer mixing modern and antique pieces of furnishing. As a general idea, I get my inspiration from the French decorative style, I am not “clean and dry”, but when I design my pieces I usually go for simple essential lines. 

Which is your favourite part of a project? 

I must admit I love the relationship that arises with my clients. I step into people’s lives, into their homes, in a very intimate way. I discover how people live, what are the habits of the families, and I often find myself in the position of helping them by listening to them. In time I learned that listening, and learning how to go around some personal dynamics, as for example between husband and wife, helps me in offering the best ideas. I love this aspect of my job because I receive both new couples, just about to go live together, as well as older couples with different needs and attitudes. And it is an honour to enter their spaces. The real challenge is understanding what the person in front of me wants and trying to filter that through my ideas: I do not believe the client is always right and I will not support their ideas if I see faults in them. 

What role does Art have in your job?  And what do you think of Cinquerosso Arte?

I believe works of art are very important and more in general whatever goes on the walls, for a very simple reason: the first thing people get wrong when they want to renovate the interior design are the paintings. Some clients are passionate about art and maybe want to build their re-furnishing ideas around the paintings, but in the majority of cases people do not have an artistic sensitivity. Thus, for an interior designer, the difficulty consists in the conjugation of the personal taste with the need of not ruining the whole project with horrible paintings hanging on the walls.

This is also why I find the Cinquerosso Arte’s project quite interesting, because it offers me and my colleagues quality works which also have accessible prices. 

Of course I see some difficulties as well, because it is not easy to make art understood through the digital channel, which adds to the lack of a real and proper culture which allows the recognition of beauty. This must be built.

Architecture is not only building, just like art is not only “museum stuff”. These two expressions of human creativity have always been intrinsically connected. We talk about this with the art historian Max Martelli.

Max, tell us briefly about the relationship between art and architecture in history.

This is obviously a very broad subject, but I will try and summarize it, starting with an example which I believe might have some common ground with the Cinquerosso Arte project. You offer consultancies to help architects integrate works of art in their projects, and this means that the work of art does not arrive last, to fill a void, it is part of the very idea of the space.

And of this deep interpenetration we have many examples coming from the past. Let us think about painters in Pompeii, who used to paint the houses creating the illusion of architectural space. Painting was not intended only to create simple decorations, it simulated architectural structures, thus modifying the perception of the spaces.

We find this kind of relation in later historical moments, too. After the long Byzantine period, where space and time disappeared in favour of icons, which could be considered as virtual prayers, Giotto comes along. I quote here the Presepe di Greccio, in Assisi, that shows us a scene happening beyond iconostasis. Giotto, in this work, takes us to the presbytery and shows us the back of the crucifix. He thus shows us an architectural space, three-dimensional, which would be otherwise hidden to the viewer. From Byzantine metaphysics we shift to a physical space.

From Giotto onwards, the space goes back to being depicted and, alongside this, the relationship between painting and architecture comes back to life. Let us think of Masaccio, who in the Trinity in Santa Maria Novella in Florence, shows us a body with almost an architectural perspective,  contained in a foreshortened archway. I would also like to recall Antonello da Messina, in his Annunciata, paradoxically here architecture is not depicted yet felt: this work includes us, the viewer occupies the space where the angel is situated. 

In the Renaissance we then have the figure of the painter-architect – Michelangelo, Bernini, Raffaello, Bramante – who was openly inspired by Roman art. In this period a technique called “quadrature” is re-discovered, which basically means to simulate architectures in which frescoes can be inserted. The Galleria Farnese by Annibale Carracci is all built around this system. It is interesting what happens during the second half of the 1400’s in the Veneto region, around Padova and Venezia, in the relationship between frame and painting. Let us think of Mantegna in the Pala di San Zeno di Verona, who inserts painting in a monumental frame: it is not therefore simply a container, but a proper architecture where characters are put on the scene. This subject is inherited by Bellini,  who in several works replicates this approach with a strong architectural frame. He goes a step forward though and frees the characters from the architectural frame in order to make them independent, but the frame goes from being physical to being painted. In the Incoronazione della Vergine, currently in the Musei Civici di Pesaro, the frame is within a frame. Christ is represented in a wooden frame,  sitting on the throne with Mary, and the back of the throne is itself a frame enclosing the representation of a landscape. It is an extraordinarily modern work of incredible impact, which I would define as revolutionary. 

Are there any examples in the plastic arts? 

Yes, several.  There is one that seems to be particularly interesting, which is the Altare del Santo di Donatello, in Padova. It is a group of bronze statues with Mary and the Child in the centre, with some bas-relief tiles around them. These works were elaborated by Donatello (who had an architect mentality) for the inside of a specific structure, of which today we know nothing. To have lost this context hinders us from appreciating this work completely, because something is missing. So this is a clear example of a very tight relationship between art and architecture, which we recognize because of its absence. By the way, the altarpiece by Mantegna, aforementioned, which was created a few years later is considered a possible hypothetical model of reference for the virtual reconstruction of the Altare di Padova,  as it seems that Mantegna took inspiration from it. 

What about nowadays, where can we see art interact with architecture? 

In more recent years, we may think of Art Nouveau and Art déco, where paintings were inserted into architectural elements. Nowadays we can think of street art: real artists realize works using parts of buildings and transfiguring them. A pipe, for example, becomes the stem of a flower and acquires, thanks to art, a new raison d’être. 

What do you think of the Cinquerosso Arte project?

I just recently met Cinquerosso and what struck me was the ability to design, rather like the artists of the past we just mentioned,  décor solutions through the integration of works of art with interior design and architecture of the spaces that the client wishes to personalize and therefore make unique and recognizable. It is a way of letting the spaces “speak”, to let them immediately convey the philosophy of a firm or a professional. The impact of the right piece of art, even if in the waiting room of a professional studio, is slightly underestimated,  but slowly its importance in communication is being discovered, the ability of works of art to strike its viewers. The right painting, put in the right place,  might become part of the success of a firm, or at least of its image in the face of the public.

I believe Cinquerosso has understood these potentials and decided to extend its offer by cultivating, in a modality which is up to date, the ancient relation between art and architecture. And this is also connected in a positive way to the project of Cinquerosso Arte,  which allows young artists and their works to be promoted and introduced from the beginning in a professional circuit,  thus leading them to potential clients. Many artists, or wannabes, might see this multiplication process of their creations, and their introduction in interior design, as a degrading factor of their creativity, but it is not like that. Suffice to think of what we just discussed about the ancient relationship between art and architecture. 

The architect Pierluigi Molteni virtually opens to us the doors o his studio to offer us his very interesting point of view on the relationship between architecture, art and people.

What are the main characteristics of your projects? 

My studio basically follows two kinds of projects, residential and temporary installations. For the residential one, we dedicate a lot of attention to how lifestyles change in time and therefore how people living there change, too. Ours is never a pure and simple style proposal, we try our best to understand how the spaces will be used by our clients. Our job is first of all about listening and attention. Then we support our client from the concept to the finishing of the interior décor, going through the executive designs, the site management, the choice of materials and the finishing: they are all aspects that cannot develop separately.

The second area is temporary installations, which divide into two sections. On one hand we curate the installations of some important Italian and international firms in the ceramic sector, on the other hand we curate museums’ and artistic settings.  The last project realized was that for the exhibition “Giulio II e Raffaello, una nuova stagione del Rinascimento a Bologna”, (Giulio II and Raffaello, a new season of the Renaissance in Bologna) at the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna, which will be open until the 5th February 2023.

Both these areas, residential and temporary installations, are to me strongly connected by a common factor. My studio starts from the experience of the space, i.e. how people live and perceive the spatial qualities of a specific area, how it sounds and reacts to light. Whether they are living spaces or for an exhibition, we build the project in order for them to be welcoming, interesting and inviting to discovery. As I said, we put at the heart the building of a genuine experience of sense and sensibility.

So art has a very important role in your work.

In my job and in my life, because I am a ‘compulsive’ exhibitions visitor. If I go to visit a city, I also go for the exhibitions. Because of my job I also meet clients with very important private collections. In these cases, we operate to create the right conditions to host and enhance the works’ characteristics. A piece of art affects the space and interacts with it. One must always read and interpret its potential.

So this is also an experience? 

Yes, because elements of surprise, estrangement and involvement must be cultivated. With a work of art an intimate relationship is always established, so the conditions to emphasize it must be built. In the Renaissance exhibition, for example, the visitor discovers the most important piece (i.e. the portrait of Giulio II painted by Raffaello) following a path of discovery. In the same way, in the houses, these pieces of art are so significantly charged that they deserve a focused study in order to enhance them as much as possible. A work of art is like a beloved one coming to live with us: it has a life of its own and we need to position so that it can express everything it has to say, and give.

What do you think of the Cinquerosso Arte project?

It seems to be a very sensible project. I believe art galleries should be re-designed. They only work if they encourage and facilitate the relationship between collector and artist, thus nurturing the communities of those who are passionate about art. Otherwise they are mere shops like any other, and the magic of art is lost.

Cinquerosso Arte is in some ways a community, a virtual community, which can nurture the necessities of Art. To this, one must add accessibility. Once the concept of art’s reproducibility was cleared (Walter Benjamin talked about this at the beginning of the XX century), we know that a multiple has the same characteristics as the original, in terms of fruition, pleasantness and the ability to talk to us and move us. The work of art maintains its value for its intrinsic beauty and because it is tied to an author, an artist, but the reproducibility allows the cost to be reduced. This is the strength of the project Cinquerosso Arte.