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Der Küchentrakt (o.) und der Schlafzimmer-Vorraum (u.) ... • The kitchen (above) and an anteroom ...
... wurden als neue Ausstellungsflächen gewonnen. • ... of a bedroom (below) are new exhibition areas. Markantestes Detail des Hauses ist die Gartentreppe. • The garden stairs are the most striking detail.
Visitors are welcomed by a nearly intact “Portaluppi” Grundriss • Floor plan
In the 1980s, the last heirs of the Corbellini-Wassermann family moved out of the
house. The first upper level was separated and divided into flats. Offices moved into
the ground floor. Although the house was not put on the list of protected monuments
until 2004, the new users of the ground-level living- and public rooms treated the
building stock very carefully. And thus Massimo De Carlo, when he took over the flat
in 2015, found an nearly intact “Portaluppi” – starting with the marble floors and the
doorjambs to the original bathroom furnishings, the hand-painted wallpaper in the
entrance, the monumental stucco ceilings and decorative fireplaces, radiator covers,
windows and doors all the way to the walnut wooden floors framed with thin alu-
minium profiles in the library, the living-room, the smoking- and the dining room.
For the architect Lorenzo Bini commissioned with the renovation and the conversion,
the task was to free the existing elements from dirt and patina and to integrate the
lighting-, safety- and air-conditioning technology necessary for operating the gallery
as invisibly as possible. Both tasks were accomplished! Larger interventions in the
building stock and the historic layout were only made in the former kitchen. To gain
more exhibition space, all the partitions were removed and a new connection to the
flat’s main hallway was produced. A new access to the lower level was designed in
the passage where Bini “hid” the necessary offices and archives. Thus almost the
complete flat is available for art and the gallery visitors. Now all that is missing is
the suitable script for Tilda Swinton!
AIT 9.2019 • 137
