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Tale of Tiles
Adelaide Testa & Andrea Marcante

www.marcante-testa.it

Tale of Tiles is the name which the Turin architects Adelaide

Testa and Andrea Marcante together with Aga Slusarczyk gave to

their dreamlike palace architecture forming the background for

the presentation of the latest collection of ceramic tiles made by

Ceramica Vogue. The unusual patterns of the Dekorami collec-

tion exude noblesse and festivity. They are a wall decoration in

the best sense of the word. The surface structures of the tiles ac-

tivate a tactile kind of memory; they bring to mind decorations

and stylistic features of bygone eras. The architecture of the

palace reacts in turn by itself awakening associations with

highly diverse architectural epochs of the past. The atmosphere

in these rooms – which can always represent ambiguous interi-

ors and exteriors – resembles the atmosphere we know from our
dreams when our subconscious only communicates with us in

signs, allusions and symbols. There are neither pieces of furni-

ture nor human beings in the rooms of the palace designed by

Testa and Marcante, just a few enigmatic animals populate the

settings. They appear to be frozen while the light mostly shining

from the zenith and enhanced by its reflection on the ceramic

surfaces also contributes to immersing ourselves in the motifs

of the fictitious palace architecture. Testa and Marcante them-

selves talk about “almost metaphysical rooms”; their palace, the

architects state, is intended to be a homage to the painter Gior-

gio de Chirico and his famous painting “The Disquieting Muses”.

Their palace plays on the relationship between nature and cul-

ture while, however, succeeding in leaving the respective forces

in an ambiguous balance. For additional motifs of the same se-

ries, please see the double pages 036/037 and 052/053.