This Genoan Penthouse Is a Curio Cabinet Inspired by Its Owners’ Travels

Within the seaside neighborhood of Castelletto, a Genoan penthouse displays the travels, recollections, and objects collected by its house owners over the course of their lives. “Getting into this house was like listening to a narrative and watching it slowly flip into a house,” says architect Giulia Grillo, who helmed the house’s transformation. “The phrases of the shoppers have been my place to begin: each anecdote, each reminiscence grew to become a residing factor of the undertaking.” Slightly than merely transforming the interiors and supplies, Grillo’s job was to offer bodily kind to a lifetime of experiences.

Discovering room for journey tales

The house appears to be like out over town, its slate roofs set in opposition to the glittering sea. The continually altering panorama follows the rhythms set by the sunshine. Right here time appears to gradual, the sounds of town recede into the gap, and each window turns into a delicate threshold: between inside and outdoors, between home intimacy and concrete life.

It was an ideal spot for the house owners, who weren’t in search of a spot to place down everlasting roots. As a substitute, they needed an area that mirrored their lives, that are continually in movement. Having spent years dividing their time between Venice, Germany, and England, they selected Genoa as a spot to relaxation. Right here, they needed a pied-à-terre that’s as a lot emotional as useful—a brief refuge that displays their identities.

In the lounge, the partitions are painted with Farrow & Ball Inexperienced Smoke in Fashionable Emulsion end. The classic couch is upholstered in Lelièvre Velours Nabab velvet, and it sits atop an vintage Bessarabian kilim rug (provenance London, nineteenth century).