GROUND WORK
With a strong sense of natural forms and expressive gestures this Italian practice channels a longstanding Australian sensibility into their structures.
AS A YOUNG MAN, Gianmatteo Romegialli had two passions: a love of architecture passed down from his parents who had a practice in the northern Italian town of Morbegno where he grew up, and trial, a motorcycle off-road sport at which he became a national champion. Gianmatteo draws an analogy. “Every piece of the motorcycle is precision designed with necessity and aesthetics in mind and has to function perfectly, like architecture,” he says.
A motorcycle also embodies a sense of freedom and Gianmatteo’s spirit of adventure led him to Australia as a graduate architect. “I had seen Glenn Murcutt’s Kempsey House in a magazine and its relationship to the landscape was new to me. In Italy there is always a historical context to factor in,” he says. Gianmatteo’s colleague and travelling companion, Massimo Tadi, introduced him to his uncle, Italian Canberra-based architect Enrico Taglietti (1926-2019), and they struck up a lifelong friendship. Gianmatteo visited annually and they travelled together to India with Taglietti’s daughter Tanja to see Le Corbusier’s work at Chandigarh and to Sicily to the temple at Agrigento. In 2018 he took to the stage at the Enrico Taglietti Symposium as part of the Design Canberra Festival and the push-and-pull of architectural debate between the two was underpinned by a huge sense of mutual affection.
“In architecture there is no single answer to the problem,” says Gianmatteo, “but the exchange of opinions and passionate ideas can help you get a better view of the paths to take.”
In 1996 he had set up the practice Act_Romegialli with partner architect Erika Gaggia with core values that remain at the heart of the firm today. “The essential and historical characteristics of a site are carefully considered and reinterpreted in contemporary language. This is to celebrate, uphold and revive the history, identity and culture of each site territory.” This mantra is clearly applied to one of their largest projects to date – the re-imagining of the Rinascente department store in Turin as a signifier of a new cultural identity for the brand. The facade was to be muted and opaque to enable the creation of a contained interior retail world while relating to its broader historical context. Hence the arch is used as an abstracted, inverted motif on the travertine marble facade, while protruding metal blades animate light and create shadow. The handsome building speaks to civic pride married with a luxurious retail and hospitality experience. Put best by Vogue Italia, the structure is, “A distillation of the past, a challenge for the present, a real glimpse into the future”.
Scale is not an issue for the practice as what matters is the alignment with the client. Indeed many are repeat clients who, as their circumstances change, want a new pool, a new house, or the re-imagining of a cultural or heritage site. One example, with the project name St. Giobbe +160, is a tiny 40sqm Venetian apartment converted from a workshop positioned right on a canal.
Waterproofing was essential against the frequent high tides and a cast-concrete container forms an internal shell that was simply partitioned for a living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. “The constant concrete wall perimeter level of plus-160cm gives the internal space a sense of protection and intimacy,” says Erika.
Green Box in the Rhaetian Alps is another project small in scale but large in its conceptual driver. A modest garage on a site with an “overwhelming presence of nature” was wrapped in a metal framework and landscape designer Gheo Clavarino ensured the vegetation provided its own unique seasonal character. The raw, robust interior in concrete and steel houses a kitchen and tool storage and is fit for purpose year round. The idea of burying buildings in nature has clearly taken root and the swimming pool project, Roccolo, set in the grounds of an historic home integrates deeply within its landscape. There is a winter garden adjacent to the house while the pool pavilion with gym looks directly onto a lily filled lake and can be accessed via an underground tunnel. “I wanted to introduce curves into the space and sourced small ceramic tiles that can be shaped around walls for a more sensuous feeling and a more gentle relationship with the water,” he says.
Current projects include private houses on Lake Como alongside art spaces and a music recording studio in Puglia but Gianmatteo is keen to make clear he is committed to the public service aspect of architecture. “My father worked on a program of economy housing and I would like to revisit those ideals.”
He acknowledges the profound impact the relationship to Australia, and Taglietti, has had on his work and his practice. “Enrico showed me the value of a deep relationship with light, nature and landscape and that has never left me.” actromegialli.it