A curious rhythm emanates from the heart of the northeastern Italian town of Udine, where furniture designer Patrizia Moroso chose to build her home years ago.
It’s the sound of unusual instruments – the woods, the architecture and the heartbeat of the owner. Patrizia loves to recount that she discovered the Udine wilderness almost by accident and decided that it had to remain as it was.
With the front-of-mind awareness that only country life and the landscape from your childhood can give you the true feeling of luxury, Patrizia enlisted a good friend, designer Patricia Urquiola, to help realise her vision. Inspired by the beech trees with their characteristic black leaves, the same colour was used to varnish the surface of the building. Similarly, the American oaks turning red and yellow in autumn inspired the reds for the doors and windows.
The river, the trees and the flora and fauna seem to be the perfect ingredients for a fairy tale – and this all became an important element in developing the architectural project on two floors; from the top storey, you can spy what’s going on in the bushes. The house enjoys a strong relationship with the outside space, as rigorous architectural volumes open out to big windows so its occupants can see what’s going on.
Indoors, life is very dynamic indeed. Her Senegalese husband, Abdou Salam Gaye, their three children and numerous family friends pop in and out. The house also serves as a creative space where it’s possible to have client meetings – something in between a showroom and a meeting room, but in a home environment. Here, her most recent collections live side by side with prototypes. New projects coexist with a clear love for the past, which manifests through the antique Chinese, Tibetan and Indian furniture. Every piece takes its place in a sort of controlled chaos – open a jewellery box and you’ll find an heirloom pearl necklace belonging to her grandmother sitting next to a futuristic 3D-printed ring.
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Inside the home, Patrizia’s striking designs mingle with artisanal artifacts from China, Tibet and India, as well as art by African artists, including her Senegalese husband, Abdou Salam Gaye.
Indoors, the colour scheme again helps gives rhythm to the house; black and red are used on the walls, the living room floor and the mosaic carpet in the hallway, which reproduces a traditional African domestic mosaic. A world of artistic images also lies within, featuring pieces by Egyptian artist Fathi Hassan and Senegalese photographer Boubacar Touré Mandémory, as well as paintings by her husband.
The modernity of the design products coexists with simplicity and uniqueness of hand made and imperfect, mainly African, objects. Africa here beats the East, at least, metaphorically speaking, where beauty means repeatable perfection.
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Fabric is a theme particularly beloved by the owner of the house. The weaving of the carpets dresses the floor as a patchwork, the tricot and traditional African clothing fabrics upholster the armchairs that are perfectly placed to see the view from the windows and a unique fabric is used for her chair collection M’Afrique. Sitting in an armchair in front of the windows and looking out towards the woods, it’s inspiring to see how Patrizia brings a variety of cultural influences together in her design vision.
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A version of this article originally appeared in our October 2017 issue.
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