The Lucano flat In Via Washington in Milan, better known as “Casa di Fantasia”, realised by Gio Ponti with the collaboration of Piero Fornasetti in 1952, is a theatrical mise en scène, typical of a particular way of domestic space and the style characteristic of the architect's projects from the 1950s to the 1960s.
The flat is an iconic example of the collaboration of the two designers, returned to public attention in 2019 thanks to an auction at the Phillips Gallery in London, dedicated to some of its fragments. A work in which the idea of uniqueness and 'total decorum' surpasses all limits thanks to the foresight of the commissioners, who were art collectors and actors in a grand theatrical composition.
The rooms of the flat are chapters in a fable designed to surprise, to disorient, and the fil rouge of this storytelling is the illusion. Decoration plays a fundamental role in the configuration of the interiors: the trompe-l'œil technique, used for the boiserie of the rooms, de-materialises the borders of the space by dilating it, ideally eliminating its boundaries.
The rooms follow one after the other Through a theatrical game of scenic backstage, Ponti gives life to a complex, unique system capable of transforming every single area of the house into a stage to be inhabited.
The Lucano flat is a dream, a wunderkammer of obsessions and objects of desire. A manifesto of the designers' complex thinking, of the infinite possibilities of decoration and craftsmanship of the time
