Kintsugi
The Kintsugi project takes shape as a silent and respectful dialogue between East and West, between present and past, between imperfection and harmony. Born from a deep understanding with a young and passionate client, the project transformed the opportunity for a simple internal rearrangement of an apartment into a “story” between the various rooms of the house. Inspired by the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken objects with gold (“kintsugi”), the project aims to restore meaning and beauty to the voids, the traces and transitions between carefully designed rooms and details that are the result of meticulous research with skilled artisans. The symbolic heart of the house is the central hallway, called “kintsugi”: this small, dark and cosy space is the silent protagonist of all the rooms, the point of origin of the flooring layout. On the floor, the kintsugi is symbolically composed of “fragments” of ceramic tiles arranged radially, stitched together by a small and precious central tile. The lowered entrance, enveloped by the ash ceiling, draws the eye towards the green “tokonoma” niche that leads into the living area. Sliding panels, a reinterpretation of “fusuma” and “shōji”, whose movement is made evident and embellished by the ash thresholds on the floor, they increase or decrease the spatial extension of the living area, thus designing a changeable home capable of adapting to the needs of those who live in it. The raw silk between the “shōji” glass panels diffuses a delicate filtered light that allows the kitchen and living room areas to gently merge and separate in an intimate twilight. Kintsugi is not just an interior design project: the materials, fabrics, colours, transitions and alignments create a “silent atmosphere” in an attempt to stitch together fragments of different cultures. Almost a hundred years after Tanizaki’s fears in his famous “Book of Shadows” (1933), Kintsugi, although in a context that is distant in time and geography, it attempts to restore a profound meaning to living according to an image that detaches itself from the contingency of our present by rediscovering value in the language of “a humble, timeless elegance”.
