PPP. PORTALUPPI PATTERN PROJECT

The aim of the previous collection “Portaluppi Herbarium” was to transpose pictorial into architecture, this time PPP wants to translate architectural structures into pictorial. The second collaboration between Pictalab and Nicolò Castellini Baldissera celebrates the growing interest for the heritage left by Piero Portaluppi and in particular his patterns. The collection features 11 subjects in different variants revisiting the originals taken from floors, gates, tiles, and mosaics from Portaluppi’s Milanese signature buildings as Villa Necchi, Casa Corbellini Wassermann or Casa degli Atellani, a palette of geometric Patterns classic by birth and modern by interpretation. The rhythm with which the marbles, briars, and paints punctuate the wall, creates a pathos that outdoes the temporal classification depicting an eclecticism that rediscovers and injects contemporary energy to the legacy of one of the greatest artists. Once again we encounter the concept of “Living in beauty,” a lifestyle embraced by the members of an enlightened bourgeoisie that always puts beauty, art and culture at the forefront, and that has inspired Pictalab in all of its creations.

Pictalab was born 15 years ago from the passion for decoration of Orsola Clerici and Chiara Troglio. Since then Pictalab has grown to become an interior decoration workshop capable of covering a spectrum of interventions ranging from pictorial decoration on walls and paper, to special finishes even on furniture and interior design objects, and counting on the collaboration of about 20 professionals. Today, in a space of more than 250 square meters in the Officine de Rolandi a large team of decorators handcrafts hand-painted wallpapers using a variety of techniques: from fresco to trompe l'oeil, from coating to lacquer. 

Nicolò Castellini Baldissera was born in Milan in the family home, Casa degli Atellani, a fine example of Italian Renaissance excellence. He belongs to an illustrious Italian design dynasty and from an early age grew up surrounded by art and architecture: his great-grandfather was the famous architect Piero Portaluppi and his father was the prominent architect Piero Castellini Baldissera. In the late 1980s he moved to London to study Art History at Sotheby’s and has since lived nomadically between Italy, France, Britain, Switzerland, North America, and North Africa, cultures that have strongly inspired his work.