In the Brera district of Milan, Italian marble brand Marsotto‘s new showroom has been designed by multidisciplinary studio Nendo, that focused on the facade to attract passerby.
From afar, the front of Marsotto’s showroom looks as if it’s sealed up by blocks of veiny white marble, because Nendo lined the entire facade – including the flush front door – in marble tiles, being careful to set them in line with the existing stonework on the building.
At one point the tiles dip inwards to form a small nook where passersby on the street can sit.
Beyond the showroom’s front door lies a small white-painted entryway: pale marble has been used again here to cover the floor and to form a screen which obscures the staircase leading down to the basement; the screen is made up of two overlapping slabs of 10-millimetre-thick marble, each punctuated with holes that measure 65 millimetres wide.
Downstairs, the new showroom has been divided into four different rooms, keeping a majority of the floor area free thanks to three-sided display plinths, each of them is backlit with bright-white strip lights; one of these has been used to present sample blocks of different types of marble that Marsotto offers.
The result is a homogeneous and surprising showroom, destined to be remembered.
