THE BOTTEGA – BOUTIQUE LARUSMIANI FOR MILAN DESIGN WEEK
A few days ago in Milan – during the “holy” week of the design week – we had the inauguration of the Bottega, the latest addition to the Larusmiani boutique that we designed at Via Verri 10, inaugurated exactly one year ago during the off-salon. The Bottega is indeed the latest intervention in the positioning and identity of the historic Milanese brand, which entrusted Benedetto Camerana with its new concept store, an ambitious project where clothing and lifestyle interact with the culture of sports car racing and exhibit design.
The Bottega is the reconstruction of the street showcase of an ancient shop of a prestigious knife brand. It is an architectural intervention that expresses, in an even more incisive – and sharp, if you allow the wordplay – way, the identity of Larusmiani. It presents itself as a micro pavilion (it is 16 square meters) in high-tech steel and glass, where the original historical showcase, recovered and fully restored, seamlessly merges with materials of technical, industrial, clean cutting, reminiscent of the hyper-technological world of sports car racing. Thus, the walnut of 1911 merges with stainless steel, perforated sheet metal, wood, and especially carbon inserts: a calibrated and characterful reference to the racing style of the brand.
A synthesis that grafts technical contemporaneity onto the warmer and more classic forms of the past. Similarly, the workshop merges with the surrounding environment, nestling like a treasure chest in the courtyard between via Verri and via Montenapoleone. The external glass walls reveal the courtyard and ideally dissolve boundaries, defining a single space with no solution of continuity between interior and exterior. The play of mirrors and perspectives replicates the street-facing showcase.