In Milan, in the historic rooms of Palazzo Bagatti-Valsecchi, a new project comes to life that explores the world of high-end perfumes, proposing an innovative concept-boutique with a strong emotional impact.
It is called ‘Art Parfums Milano’ and was conceived, at the urging of one of the greatest ‘noses’ in circulation today, by Nick Maltese and Federico Pagetti, founders and owners of Nick Maltese Studio.
Maltese and Pagetti were faced with an unusual and multifaceted challenge: first of all, to find an aesthetically effective synthesis in the contrast between a historicist container that, through the late Romantic sentiment typical of the late 19th century, reinterprets the housing culture of the Renaissance; and the desire to create a scene within it, a markedly minimal and contemporary content, with a vein of stylistic transgression.
Nick Maltese explains: ‘The hall and mezzanine entrusted to us to put the project into practice constituted by definition a setting as magniloquent as it was untouchable, with a “domestic” loggia, columns, grand staircases, a large fireplace and a black and white chequered floor. For the interior we had in mind, a kind of spaceship interior with a vague rock flavour, it was therefore necessary to devise a language that would emphasise and bring into harmony the qualities of the two poles in question, the present and the past, without one overpowering or interfering with the other. Having resolved the technical and safety issues in collaboration with the Museum Director and the Technical Director, we worked on a concept that favours angular forms and mirroring materials capable of reflecting and thus perceptually multiplying and at the same time visually mixing the elements of the scene, so as to envelop the visitor in an almost baroque magic of wonder. We have aimed to give substance to a multi-sensory experience – in which the sense of smell occupies a prominent place – that does not completely renounce decoration and yet aims to enhance the raw material in a new, pure and intense aesthetic model’.
All the furnishings are custom made and designed ad hoc: the desk, the large central calacatta marble puff designed by Nick Maltese Studio in collaboration with Marmi Fuda, the coffee tables, the shoppers, the floor lamp, in perfect aesthetic harmony with each other, boast petrous, pungent lines with character and are made of brushed steel and smoked glass.
The backlit displays and totems are among the focal points of the project: in appearance they pay homage to the skyline of the new Milan of skyscrapers, to its intersection of soaring forms and restful, rhythmic horizontality, they draw a sort of symbolic city and display, in terms of material, an orderly juxtaposition of brushed steel and glass.
Angular lines, reflections and contrasts are the guidelines that have guided the Studio to create an excellent project that amazes and never ceases to intrigue, in which everything contributes to reaffirming the centrality of perfume in today’s concept of luxury and elegance.
For further information visit www.nickmaltesestudio.com.
