Type of project
Hotel
Year
2019
Tag
Restoration Resin Plaster Wood Arts Interior
Photographers
Cuauhtémoc Giancaterino
Status
Completed
Location
Siena, Italy
The prestigious location of the building, a few metres from Piazza del Campo and Piazza Duomo, and the formal characteristics of the structure, which experienced periods of abandonment, as well as recent consolidation work, guided us to seek out strategies that would respect the building’s unique stylistic elements and its original layout.
We uncovered pictorial layers from different eras and with different chromatic tones during our first examination, confirming the high quality of the building’s structure.
At that point, we decided to launch a philological restoration campaign, which enabled us to reveal all the building’s secrets, concealed under the various layers of plaster.
We demolished partition walls to restore the building’s layout to resemble the original as closely as possible, allowing us to uncover the original appearance of the spaces. By reopening the intermediate passageways of the 1700s, which had evidently been filled in during subsequent building phases, we were able to limit cutting into load-bearing walls and, therefore, the necessity for adding reinforcement.
The project involved creating a high-end B& B, with 4 double bedrooms with ensuite, a common area, and a kitchenette; the overall effect recreated a domestic yet, at the same time, aristocratic ambiance.
From the moment the frescoes were uncovered, we enjoyed the charm of an “artistically dusty” atmosphere, a sort of still life by Morandi, that represented the common thread of the entire project.
A high-performance resin coating reunites all of the rooms, re-establishing a neutral plane for the decorated and frescoed walls to rest upon and on which light is scattered into nebulous patterns.
The remarkable bathroom tiles are sourced from four travertine quarries in the local area. They are mostly laid in large format, emphasising the nature of the material over the design of the composition.
