May 7, 2019

New in Europe: 10 Recent Projects in Milan, Madrid, Stockholm, and More

From Milan to Stockholm, a variety of new projects reflect the modern/traditional mix of contemporary European design. These hotels, homes, apartments, restaurants, showrooms, shops, and galleries capture the distinct personality of the brands and clients for which they were designed.

1. Galleria Rossana Orlandi in Milan Opens Glamorous Aimo e Nadia BistRo

Galleria Rossana Orlandi is a mandatory Milan stop for design aficionados. The three-story emporium encourages visitors to linger: They can wander through its labyrinthine rooms, sit in the greenery-filled courtyard, and even have dinner at Aimo e Nadia BistRo, Orlandi’s restaurant located next door. Read more about the gallery/restaurant

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2. Matteo Foresti Modernizes a Narrow Stockholm Building Into a Light-Filled Café

Matteo Foresti’s eponymous design firm had only just opened when a commission came in: the chance to transform a student pub in a circa-1915 building, located in the center of his new home of Stockholm, into a fast-casual spot called Kale & Crave. The opportunity was big, but so was the challenge of organizing a 50-seat restaurant across four narrow floors totaling just 2,200 square feet. Read more about the café

3. Tom Dixon Opens Restaurant/Showroom The Manzoni in Milan

Rather than just another five-day exhibition at Salone de Mobile, this year designer Tom Dixon decided to make his mark on Milan a little more permanent. His Design Research Studio created The Manzoni, a restaurant that doubles as a showroom. Incorporating Dixon’s three new collections, The Manzoni—named for its location at 5 Via Manzoni—elevates the products from simply being on display to functioning in an active environment. Read more about The Manzoni

4. Zooco Studio Masterminds a Witty Madrid Flagship for La Oca Selezione

La Oca Selezione has long been the place—or, with over 20 store locations, the places—for design-savvy Spaniards seeking modern furniture. For its new flagship on Madrid’s trendy Calle de Castelló, the company turned to local firm Zooco Estudio to transform a blandly anonymous space into a witty take on retail design. Read more about the flagship

5. Stone Designs Gives Mid-Century Mod a Contemporary Twist in Teads’ Madrid Office

Global media platform Teads might be a truly 21st-century enterprise, masterminding online ads that reach more than one billion eyes each month, but its new Madrid office is more Mad Men than Blade Runner. Which is not to say the 5,200-square-foot space is a museum piece. Instead, local firm Stone Designsbreathed new life into the 1950s-era building. Read more about the office

6. Auer Weber and Christophe Gulizzi Architecte Create Dynamic Exterior for Arena du Pays d’Aix

The Arena du Pays d’Aix in southern France is a response to the sport-as-spectacle movement. Designed by Auer Weber and Christophe Gulizzi Architecte, the exterior of the 250,000-square-foot elliptical building is as engaging as the activities happening within—mostly handball but also basketball and hockey games, boxing matches, concerts, and other entertainment. Watch a video walkthrough of the stadium

7. NOA Gives Arches a Modern Twist at Gloriette Guesthouse in Italy

The arcaded belvedere, along with its local descendants and the villas they serve, many in the art nouveau style, informed the design of Gloriette Guesthouse, a new 25-room boutique hotel by NOA* Network of Architecture that reinterprets Soprabolzano’s leisured past for the 21st century. Read more about the hotel

8. Natural Light and Neutral Finishes Define a Studio DiDeA-Designed Apartment in Palermo

A couple in Palermo had been looking around for a new house; instead, while looking through a magazine, they found local Studio DiDeA and together embarked on a refreshing of their 1,500 square-foot apartment. Windows on both sides of the home let in not only cooling breezes from the Tyrrhenian Sea and the nearby Parco della Favorita, says architect and cofounder Emanuela di Gaetano, but also ample light. Read more about the apartment

9. Dimore Studio Fashions a Unique Look for Luxury Italian Womenswear Emporium One-Off

Over the past decade, Dimore Studio has become one of the design world’s buzziest practices. Their interiors often bring together unusual color combinations, a wistful nostalgia, and striking originality. Unveiled last month, Dimore Studio’s latest project is One-Off, a 6,500-square-foot luxury womenswear boutique in Brescia, about an hour east of Milan. Read more about the boutique

10. Andreas Fuhrimann Gabrielle Hächler Architekten Brings Latin American Modernism to Swiss Villa

Architects Andreas Fuhrimann and Gabrielle Hächler have amassed quite an artsy clientele since founding their eponymous firm in 1995. Their residential work is notable for the fluid transitions between spaces as well as the clarity, simplicity, and rich tactility of the materials palette. Those specialties are leveraged in another multistage project they recently completed: transforming a midcentury-era villa into a combination residence, studio, and exhibition space for an art-world couple. Read more about the residence

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Recent Projects