COLOSSAL AMBITION

Tasked with overhauling a Roman penthouse with one of the best views in the world, Alvisi Kirimoto had no choice but to think big.

WHEN DESIGNING AN APARTMENT WITH a view of the Colosseum, the first rule of architecture should be: Get out of the way. But that was not what the previous owners of this top-floor, twostory Roman apartment had done. The ceiling was low, the room was filled with columns, and there was a big box in the middle of the floor covering the mechanical equipment for the building’s elevator. “From the first moment, it wasn’t only an interior project,” says Massimo Alvisi, who with his wife and partner, Junko Kirimoto, took on the two-year renovation, completed just before the pandemic.

To make matters even more complicated, the apartment needed a new roof, a challenging maneuver in the center of a historic city like Rome, where, he notes, “everything you do has to be approved by the heritage board,” from the color of the outside stucco to window shapes and sizes.

But Alvisi Kirimoto prevailed, managing the complex process of getting stone, wood, glass, and steel up from the narrow streets to the penthouse, where a pitched roof now presides over a wide-open living space, with a raised stage that both covers that equipment and improves the angle on the Roman ruins from the blocky Gaetano Pesce sofas.

It helped that most of the 19-year-old firm’s work is at a public scale, from their elegantly detailed affordable apartments in Barletta to the shipshape Franco Corelli Academy of Music in Camerino, both in Italy. Before founding the Rome-based practice, Alvisi worked for Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Kirimoto for the renowned studio Fuksas.

The pair’s experience with theater design was part of what drew the clients to their work. The “open-space super-attic” is now a favorite place to chill. “It’s like a templum—a sacred place to contemplate the stunning view and at the same time feel inner peace,” says the homeowner. “I love the duality of the design, where two dimensions coexist: the meticulous attention to detail inside, and the lightheartedness of the mind when looking outward.”

The owners, both artists, “trusted us but were strong enough to influence our approach,” Alvisi notes. They already had a collection of furniture by Pesce, the contemporary Italian design master known for his playful manipulation of materials like resin into bright, highly touchable objects. (The colors “make the space vibrate,” says the client.) But they also asked their architects to use wallpaper—an atypical choice in Italy, and one often disdained by modernists who like to keep their walls and floors bare.

It was Kirimoto, a native of Yokohama, Japan, who thought to use a floral wallcovering. The pattern connects the interior to the flowers and trees on the apartment’s double terraces, much as Japanese houses employ landscape prints to create a visual link with their courtyards. All three of the wallpapers are from one manufacturer, Romo, and in similar silvery tones, creating a vegetal conversation between the leaves in the kitchen and the budding branches in the bedroom. The gold and orange flowers on the walls also pick up the vivid hues of a Maarten Baas bench and the copper tones of a bedside table by Ghidini 1961.

The couple’s second request was for special materials, easily fulfilled by turning to Italy’s rich craft traditions. Her preference for pink translated into a main bathroom dominated by a hand-carved, fontlike marble sink, the organic shape modeled by Kirimoto in clay. “The sinks were made in Tuscany, close to Carrara, the same location as Michelangelo’s stone,” Alvisi says. The vanity table, selected by the client in concert with the architects, has a curvaceous pink shelf and is carefully positioned so that she can see the Colosseum while putting on her makeup.

The doors are particularly striking—wooden frames hold glass panes punctuated by oversize wenge knobs that seem to float in the center. “We wanted them to be something special,” Alvisi says. When open, the doors create long lines of sight through the apartment. When closed, they act as soft mirrors, with lengths of natural linen sandwiched between the two sheets of glass.

While the living room is sprawling thanks to those chunky, room-spanning roof beams, the kitchen is relatively modest, a compact space ideal for morning coffee under the Louis Poulsen lamp. “They didn’t want a big kitchen,” says Alvisi. “In Italy there is a strong tradition of kitchens that are not really open. It is a room; it is not in the living room.” Ultimately, the apartment is designed like a traditional house, with rooms. Even the wood-paneled staircase, the first thing guests see when they step out of the elevator, is modest in scale and off to one side, rather than being a dramatic museum piece. “The clients told me they like the idea of having a very gradual perception,” Alvisi says. Every day there is something new to discover, inside and out.

The Palatine Hill and Colosseum are visible from the living room of a Roman penthouse renovated by the architecture firm Alvisi Kirimoto. The sofa, bench, and ottoman are by Gaetano Pesce for Meritalia, the cocktail table is by Piet Hein Eek, and the floor lamp is by DCW. The chair (left) is by Carl Hansen, and the dining table is by Hay. The flooring is wenge, as is the platform cladding. For details, see Resources.

An upper-floor terrace overlooks the Colosseum. The table is by Victoria Episcopo, and the chairs are by Maarten Baas. Jasmine climbs the surrounding walls, and the floor tiles are terra-cotta. OPPOSITE: Architects Junko Kirimoto (left) and Massimo Alvisi in front of an artwork designed by Kirimoto for the Michelin-starred restaurant Per Me Giulio Terrinoni in Rome.

ABOVE: The entry’s custom doors feature linen between panes of glass and have frames and handles in wenge. A hallway with a Mogg armchair leads to the owners’ art studio; a Maarten Baas desk and chair face the window. The vase is by Federica Bubani. RIGHT, FROM TOP: In the studio, the bookshelves are custom, the floral wallcovering is by Romo, and an antique bronze mantel is topped with sculptures by Giuseppe Palermo. In a powder room, the white onyx marble sink and mirror are custom, the fittings are by Fantini, and the sconce is by Flos. OPPOSITE: The kitchen table is by Extendo, the chairs are by Ton, and the pendant is by Louis Poulsen. The backsplash is Carrara, and the walls are in Elephant’s Breath by Farrow & Ball.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: In the main bedroom, the bed is dressed in linens by L’Arcolaio, a bedside table is by Ghidini 1961, a JSPR vanity holds a Gubi mirror, the stool is by Dirk Vander Kooij, and the floral wallcovering is by Romo. The main bath’s custom sink is in Rosa Portogallo marble, the fittings are by Fantini, and the pendants are by Flos. The bed in the guest room is topped with pillows by Vox Populi, the nightstand is by Maarten Baas, and the wallcovering is by Hermès Home. OPPOSITE: In the dressing room, the leather-clad vanity and chair are by Pianca.