This article about VPM was published in Manera Magazine num 10 in December 2024
The project was carried out by Rodrigo Izquierdo Design Estudio
Milan is one of those cities that has everything a lover of the eclectic is looking for: it is modern but also industrial; it is stately but also brutalist; it is sophisticated and luxurious but also youthful and, at the same time, it offers points of color and moments of fun. It is not for nothing that it has earned the title of the mecca of design. Surely, many of us have asked ourselves what it would be like to live in a metropolis like this. Are the houses in Milan as interesting as the city that houses them? The answer is given by the Spanish interior designer Rodrigo Izquierdo, who transformed and decorated a typical Milanese apartment located in the Porta Venezia area, into a comfortable, modern and functional home, without losing, of course, its original classic aura.
The young couple who owned it wanted a house that reflected their personalities and their way of seeing life. They were not afraid of color and did not mind taking risks. Given this scenario, Rodrigo redesigned the living room area to turn it into an open space that would house the living room, the television and the kitchen. He also eliminated the typical central hallway of stately apartments, those that have rooms on either side, in order to give the home more spaciousness. “The biggest challenge was to create a fluid, fresh and organic interior that did not give away that it had been renovated. I wanted it to feel like it had always been that way. We achieved this, for example, with the moldings on the ceilings that we made from scratch, but that are inspired by those of the entrance of the building that dates back to the early 20th century,” recalls Rodrigo, who took half a year to complete this task.
Curiously, although the kitchen is open to the living room, it can go a little unnoticed. And that was the interior designer’s goal.
“My goal was to integrate the spaces so that they coexisted in harmony and that the functions for which they were intended were not so noticeable. I didn’t want someone to have to look at the kitchen in the background when they sat on the living room sofa to watch television, located in the central green module with the dining room,” he says.
To achieve this, Rodrigo placed mirrors in the cupboards’ upper floors to give a sense of depth and to reflect the view. In addition, hidden behind the kitchen cabinets is a guest bathroom, in blue tones, which gives the impression of being a restaurant or hotel bathroom “because we discarded the traditional neutral or white tones of domestic bathrooms,” he recalls.
Both the hall and the living room, the master bedroom suite and the study have very simple but elegant parquet flooring, and are furnished with designer pieces, works of art, rugs and colorful objects that give the house a lot of versatility. “I call it cosmic balance,” he concludes.
