The creative duo directors opened Casa Caleido, a space in Verona with several souls. It is in fact both their private residence and a location in which convivial symposia, meetings, events and special projects between creatives are organised to foster dialogue around the culture of design and creativity, convey its high values and strengthen personal and professional connections. Architectural and stylistic contaminations characterise the renovation of an Art Nouveau flat in Verona (Italy). Matter and materials, imperfect beauty, essential volumes but rich in inspiration: from Brazil to Venice, passing through Marrakech. The flat’s 140 square metres become a stylistic manifesto for the duo, who move between Brazilian modernist rationalism – with Brutalist references to the great masters Lina Bo Bardi, Jorge Zalszupin and Oscar Niemeyer – and Moroccan silhouettes and textures, the couple’s adopted home.
Most of the furnishings have been designed by them and are part of the Caleido Collection, a self-produced brand: the headboards of the beds in the iconic Caleido colour, the dining tables in Brazilian Blue Sea marble with a natural iron base, the walnut bench, the slanted sideboard with offset textured doors. All made in Italy by expert craftsmen, who have used only carefully selected primitive and raw materials: dark walnut wood, marble, iron, cement.The renovation project is based on a dual level: box and content. The work on the first, the building, reflects a conservative spirit: the existing original elements – such as the framed doors and decorated cement tiles from the turn of the century (a different one for each room) – have been preserved, and others, such as the original plasterwork submerged by time, and the original subdivision of spaces and passages, have been restored. As for the content, it is comparable to a cosmopolitan travelogue of the couple: eclectic, a lover of contamination and raw beauty understood as the love of the imperfect.
The heart of the house is the dining room, from which all the other rooms are accessed through the original doors and the Caleido arch, also used to shape the headboard of the master bed. The two, passionate about cooking and conviviality, are in fact used to organising dinners paying particular attention to the art de la table: a collection of 100 different glasses, Art Deco cutlery alternating with the minimalist Santiago contemporary collection designed by David Chipperfield for Alessi, plates and ceramics purchased from around the world, and natural linen tablecloths. Great care was also taken in the design of the bathroom, inspired by the relaxing Riads of the Marrakech medina, dominated by a large elephant-grey masonry bathtub accessible through a Caleido arch.