Under the sign of the sublime

The poetic and eclectic design of Spazio RT

Spazio RT, via Fatebenefratelli 34, Milano - Mostra fotografica di Christian J. Floquet - Photo © Amendolagine Barracchia
Spazio RT, via Fatebenefratelli 34, Milano - Mostra fotografica di Christian J. Floquet - Photo © Amendolagine Barracchia

From restoration of antique masterpieces to vintage – including pieces by Albini, Gio Ponti and Caccia Dominioni – and from the creation of interior furnishings in retail spaces, offices and private homes. For over 20 years, Milan-based studio and showroom Spazio RT has interpreted expressions of beauty, paced by an intriguing dialogue of art, design, history and contemporary spirit. The founders Antonio and Jacopo Tabarelli de Fatis tell IFDM all about it.

A designer has to be a mechanic
with a strong leaning towards poetry.
Antonio e Jacopo Tabarelli de Fatis

How did you get started?
Antonio: With a diesel car that wouldn’t start in the winter. The first trip to northern Europe, in search of material, involved asking some kind soul to help us get the car started every morning, by pushing it…

Ritratto: da sinistra, Jacopo e Antonio Tabarelli de Fatis - Ph: Alessia Interlandi
Ritratto: da sinistra, Jacopo e Antonio Tabarelli de Fatis – Ph: Alessia Interlandi

First the restoration of antique furniture, then vintage and modern pieces, followed by interior design and your own furniture line… could you tell us about the growth of Spazio RT over time?
Antonio: Restoration of antiques was an excellent start. There are jobs in which you have to have deep knowledge of material and also the spirit of things. They enable you to have a relationship with complexity. You have to grasp that, or else. The rest came gradually, but inevitably. Jacopo is an architect and he has always interpreted this work as part of a wider-ranging activity, in which design had to be a part. I was a bookworm, quietly studying law. A bit of youthful folly. The rest of the folly came later. And was much better.

In the area of collectible design, what are the modern icons most in demand among your clients?
Antonio: There are some more traditional clients who are attracted by icons, it’s true. But we try to avoid them if possible, because we prefer to concentrate on very evocative things, even if they are not iconic.
Jacopo: Of course our offerings in the gallery include pieces of historic Milanese design (such as Albini, Gio Ponti, Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Gardella), but that has never prevented us from extending our research beyond that horizon.

LB7, libreria modulare di Franco Albini per Poggi, 1957
LB7, libreria modulare di Franco Albini per Poggi, 1957

How did the idea of making your own collection come about?
Antonio: It came from the need to give form to ideas. The tangible side of the project. To have something in front of you that comes from thinking, the fulfillment of thought.

What inspires you when you are designing?
Antonio: The concrete need of the moment, and the desire to give that need the response with the highest degree of beauty possible. A designer has to be a mechanic with a strong leaning towards poetry.

How would you define your style in interior design? And in furniture?
Antonio: The spirit of the times is there, of course. But the critical sense that develops slowly over the years is the antidote against an ingenuous compliance with fashions. Including the fashion of nostalgia for the recent past. People say that Milan is the homeland of sober style. Which is a bit like saying that one works by subtracting. But in the end, something poetic and functional always has to remain. Quite a struggle, in short…

You have made private homes for international celebrities. What were the most eclectic requests?
Antonio: It has also happened recently. We made a far from ordinary proposal, and it was immediately accepted. Wonderful. Then we finished our gambling chips and had to rely on good common sense…
Jacopo: Usually the requests are quite normal… the eclectic part comes in our proposals.

Deep Nature: Animal Codex by Wall&decò, design Ludovica+Roberto Palomba
Deep Nature: Fluid by Wall&decò, design Draga & Aurel
Deep Nature: Nonostante il fiore by Wall&decò, design Antonio Marras
Deep Nature: Seventh floor by Wall&decò, design Christian Benini
Deep Nature: Animal Codex by Wall&decò, design Ludovica+Roberto Palomba
Deep Nature: Fluid by Wall&decò, design Draga & Aurel
Deep Nature: Nonostante il fiore by Wall&decò, design Antonio Marras
Deep Nature: Seventh floor by Wall&decò, design Christian Benini
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Among your achievements, there is the Barone de Cles winery in Trentino Alto Adige. Would you say something about this project?
Antonio: We have worked for a number of years in contact with a place that is completely different from Milan. An agricultural company that had to be “rethought” from scratch, and has gradually entrusted us with the redesign of all its spaces open to the public. A historic cellar, tasting rooms, retail and image spaces. This new corporate project then extended to the renewal and opening of a very important historical building, that had always been set aside for private use on the part of the same family. These places were also partially abandoned, but they are full of references, and very refined signs. I would say “of very high expressive intensity.” In that project, any new gesture would have a far from negligible impact, and would be noticed even if it was invisible, like the cleaning of a stone pillar from five centuries ago, or the restoration of a wooden gate three centuries old… Now those places also contain our ideas, made solid by designed artifacts, in dialogue with history.

Rosso Levanto, tavolini con top in pietra rossa, design Spazio RT
Rosso Levanto, tavolini con top in pietra rossa, design Spazio RT

You have invited the architect Francesco Librizzi to collaborate with Spazio RT for the creation of a bookcase that will be presented in Milan during the Salone del Mobile 2022. Can you give us a preview?
Antonio: The collaboration with Francesco Librizzi stems from deep esteem. He is a cultured, curious, refined and enthusiastic architect. And he has his own style. A rarity. Perhaps because today almost everybody gets involved in design, and so there is inevitably some compromise in the quantity-quality ratio. The project will be presented when the right moment comes along.

What other projects are you working on at present?
Jacopo: We are renovating various apartments in Milan, an important historical building from the 1700s in Tuscany, and a refurbishment in Saint Moritz. Then there will also be new products to add to our collection, including a low table with a top in Sahara Noir marble, a cast bronze leg and a pumice finish.

Spazio RT
by Antonio e Jacopo Tabarelli de Fatis
Via Fatebenefratelli 34, Milano (Italy)
spaziort@spaziort.com
www.spaziort.com