Rooms are at our mercy. Vintage spaces get stripped clean to create something more contemporary. Bare-bones interiors get gussied up with crown molding and herringbone floors. A home is a living thing, so it’s natural that we should help it evolve. But between these extremes lies another approach – not a period-perfect take, but one that expresses a willingness to accept the essential character of a place without surrendering fully to what was.
In reimagining a 1950s apartment for a young couple, architect Costanza Santovetti took a singularly measured approach. Located in Rome’s Parioli district, a few steps from Villa Borghese, the unit had never been renovated, and the owners, one of whom had been raised in it, wanted to jettison the white-and-beige palette for more color, while making the layout more compatible with family life.
Santovetti, whose career has taken her to Vienna, Paris and London, reorchestrated the space, beginning with the kitchen, which was small and sequestered at the end of a corridor. She repositioned it closer to the living room and an adjacent terrace, keeping it separate though visually connected by a massive glass porthole. The children’s bedrooms were given a shared bath, and a wide hallway was requisitioned for a laundry room and service area. The primary bedroom was reoriented toward the terrace and equipped with an en suite bathroom.
Although the apartment retains a boxiness typical of the era, it is animated by such features as floor-to-ceiling bookcases, a deep, arched niche in the primary bedroom and almost irreverent touches, such as the wall-hung, industrial cast-iron sink in the guest bathroom. But it is Santovetti’s astute deployment of color that truly brings a visual and spatial depth to the home. “Color is one of the elements that fascinates me most and characterizes all my projects,” she shares. “I like the idea of choosing colors that interact with the context and define the spaces but at the same time, can express the personality of the homeowners. In this specific project, green is naturally part of the house itself since it overlooks a very lush garden. And the owner is a very sunny and positive person and loves yellow in all its shades.”
Color plays a key role in the furnishings as well. In the living room, a trio of brightly-hued, round and oval coffee tables of varying heights (designed by Claudia Pignatale of Secondome) form an engaging relationship with the yellow, blue and red components of the long, adjustable Mod 265 Wall Sconce by Paolo Rizzatto for FLOS. There’s a harlequin-like jauntiness to the lacquered table and its companion pendants that Santovetti designed for the dining area, and the primary bathroom is particularly exuberant, clad in bright-yellow Zellige tiles. Vintage midcentury easy chairs, classic bentwood pieces and a storage cabinet designed in the 1960s by Czech designer Jiří Jiroutek are among the items Santovetti sourced to complement the newly refreshed apartment.
There’s a wonderful clarity about this Roman residence, a simplicity that doesn’t come up short, a pleasing insouciance driven not by a pronounced stylishness, but by an eye for what makes sense. Pitched perfectly between “look at me” and true livability, it speaks “home” in any language.
Photography by Serena Eller.
For more like this be sure to check out the vibrant haven of gallery owner Serge Rosenzweig.
Like what you see? Get it first with a subscription to aspire design and home magazine.