GRM apartment is a refurbishment in an Art Nouveau building designed by Piùerre, covers an area of 90 sqm and is located in Milan, Italy.

“The renovation of the flat located in an Art Nouveau apartment building from early 1900s has provided an opportunity to confront the theme of the intervention on existing, in a context which is rich in traces of the past. The project focused on the creation of a large, bright living room on the street-facing side of the flat. In order to do so, an existing wall is decided to be demolished to open up the spaces of entrance and distribution, which were enclosed in a long hallway before.
The opening of a large “threshold” reinterprets the original spatial distribution of which remains a trace in form of a portal with decorated surfaces. Despite the impossibility to recover complete fragments of its decoration, this “threshold” is however emphasized and accentuated in the depth through the anthracite gray paint of the doors of existing closet and the suspended ceiling in plasterboard. This color choice intentionally distinguishes the muted tones found in the rest of the house from new elements to render the new intervention recognizable.
The original decor of the two rooms – now combined together to form the living area – are unveiled partially.The choice of promoting only the perimetral parts of the decoration,i.e the parts that remained more intact; led to the intervention of cutting out two frames inside the white ceiling in plasterboard. In this way, the different identities of the two areas of origin are further emphasized: one characterized by a more delicate decoration with a floral pattern, the other representing a decidedly more elaborate decoration.
In the master bedroom, instead, previous interventions had compromised the integrity of the ceiling decorations. Therefore only the portion in the vicinity of the door is chosen to be revived, while the remaining is hidden behind the suspended ceiling.
All the original doors are preserved: the closure of a threshold down the hall had involved the construction of a closet, keeping the glazed doors as shutters. Only for the two bathrooms, which are completely new, recessed wall fitting doors are used.
The selection of color palette for all internal surfaces is oriented over a range of soft colors sampled from the decorations: the ceiling of the corridor, the back wall and in the small storage portion formed above the door were tinted with light gray, as well as the front wall of the living room.
Photos by Alberto Canepa Photography