As the founders of architecture and interior design studio Marcante-Testa, Andrea Marcante and Adelaide Testa are used to applying their sophisticated way with colour and pattern to all kinds of interiors, from historic villas to contemporary homes.
When their friends Marco Lobina and Isabella Errani asked them to renovate their new apartment in Turin, the pair seized the opportunity to add a footnote to the story of Italian architecture. Marco and Isabella spend their working week in Milan – he is the owner of the resin company Rezina and she heads a major PR agency – and weekends in Turin.
They had bought a top-floor apartment in a 1950s block designed by Ada Bursi, who Andrea describes as ‘a key, though long-overlooked, figure of postwar Italian architecture’. The duo were familiar with Bursi’s legacy – she was the first woman to register with the Order of Architects in Piedmont – and so the project became not only a straightforward mission to create a modern family home, but also, says Andrea, ‘a gesture of continuity and resignification of Bursi’s architectural thinking’.
What's everyone reading?
The building sits in the Crimea district, one of the city’s most elegant residential areas. The apartment’s previous owners were an architect couple who were contemporaries of Bursi. When Andrea and Adelaide first saw it, the home was empty and largely unchanged, with original 1950s features including the staircase, living-room cabinetry, bedroom wardrobes and Modernfold accordion doors – beloved by Gio Ponti – as well as fixtures that Ponti designed for Ideal Standard.
To maintain the distinctive character, they decided to subtly update these details; the staircase now has a new stone base, while the teak cupboards have been given metallic legs. They also sensitively reworked the arrangement of the spaces, avoiding demolition where possible. This was not merely a preservation of history but also, says Adelaide, ‘a sustainable design choice to minimise consumption and the environmental impact associated with waste disposal and new production.’
‘Bursi often spoke of “democratic luxury” – a concept and challenge that resonates deeply with us, which we continuously explore in our work,’ adds Adelaide, describing Bursi’s greatest skill as the ability to use simple, inexpensive materials to make her projects innovative and personal. Her definition of luxury was ‘based on design intelligence and meticulous attention to detail’.
With this in mind, Marcante-Testa strove to balance architectural and decorative components. For Andrea, the new flooring by Rezina in the living room, distinguished by thin diagonal lines of glass mosaic set into the resin, expresses this idea. These motifs, which echo the decorative patterns found in the common areas of the building, become spatial tools, orienting perception and establishing a dialogue with original features.
The mosaic element reappears on floors throughout the interior, from the geometric patterns in the kitchen to the small coloured confetti on the linoleum in the bedroom, created specially for this project.
Marco and Isabella were initially worried that they might not fully appreciate the architectural value of a late-1950s building but, thanks to Marcante-Testa’s respect for Ada Bursi’s legacy, they have a renewed admiration for it and the design heritage of Turin, a city they love deeply. Says Andrea: ‘We have created a home transformed for contemporary living, yet consistent with the original spirit of the place and its author.’ marcante-testa.it
