One of the largest and most important architectural and interior design practices in Italy, Milan-based ACPV Architects Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel has been busy building the city of today and tomorrow, intent on improving quality of life and creating a more sustainable and fairer society. Recent years have seen a series of flagship projects come to life: Covivio’s Fastweb headquarters in Milan, San Babila Business Center in Milan for Goldman Sachs, the Turin headquarters of international consulting company Reply and the Nove office building in Munich – all a reflection of ACPV’s workplace design expertise. Internationally, the practice has delivered the Arte oceanfront condominium in Miami and Havenkwartier master plan in Hasselt, Belgium. Over in Taiwan, La Bella Vita and Treasure Garden residential towers in Taichung employ stone construction and contemporary Italian geometric designs, while the mixed-use Taipei Sky Tower draws inspiration from Chinese bamboo and the vertical grooves of classic Greek columns, thereby revealing ACPV’s carefully considered East-meets-West approach.
The concept of livability lies at the heart of the ACPV philosophy, conceiving spaces that connect streets, public spaces, services, nature and people. Not interested in making loud statements that break the mold or in following trends, Antonio Citterio is a world away from the starchitects of today. He prefers to go quietly to the essence instead, getting to the synthesis while integrating a form of clarity and exactitude. “Designing objects is not about creating a mere expression of something, but rather about giving answers to concrete and real questions,” he states. “In architecture, the approach is the same: buildings are not about creating new icons, but about designing in a way that integrates into the context and the location.”
Born in 1950 in Meda, a furniture production hub near Milan, Citterio came naturally to design. At the age of 14, he enrolled in the Art Institute of Cantù, where he designed furniture for four or five hours a day, then joined the atelier of his father, an artisan-entrepreneur who crafted furniture. After graduating in architecture from Milan Polytechnic, he established an industrial design studio with Paolo Nava. They parted ways in 1981, and Citterio went on to work on buildings alongside his wife, American architect Terry Dwan, for a decade, but he never stopped designing objects. By the end of the 1990s, his client roster included some of Europe’s most respected furniture brands, including Kartell, Vitra, Artemide, Flexform and Moroso.
Arte luxury condominium on the oceanfront of Surfside, Florida
Photo Kris Tamburello
Milan-born French architect Patricia Viel was enlisted by Citterio in 1986 while still studying at Milan Polytechnic, and in 2000, they cofounded ACPV, with Citterio as chairman and Viel as CEO, which presently counts almost 150 employees. “When Patricia arrived, the studio started to transform,” Citterio recalls. “Before her, the work concentrated mostly on design, then thanks to her, it became more and more an architectural practice. Patricia was, and still is, so organized that I put a lot of work in her hands.”
Today one of Italy’s best-known contemporary designers and architects, Citterio makes no distinction between product and architectural design, where the product is conceived within an architectural vision. In fact, Italian design has almost always been carried out by architects, with objects conceived as solutions to problems of space and architecture. “The decision to go to architecture school was a logical consequence, especially in Italy where the boundaries between architecture, interior design and industrial design were not very rigid,” notes Citterio. “It was typically Italian to approach architecture, interiors and products with the same approach.” His design zeroes in on complex objects in complex situations, with each project requiring the input of numerous skill sets, which mirrors his architectural work, where understanding how to manage different talents and complexity is a necessity.
Enel headquarters in Rome
Photo courtesy of ACPV
Viel discloses, “Antonio would say that design and architecture are like two souls that live together: the architect’s conceptual approach and the designer’s creativity. Design and architecture share an understanding of people’s needs; you need to have a clear idea of what the needs are when you design an object, when you furnish a space or when you design a building. We approach architectural or interior design projects by studying the building site, its context and history, and we consider them as the raw materials. We seek solutions that build a strong relationship with the surroundings. Always, the aim is to enhance the values that govern the life of the location.”
Now boasting an impressive repertoire after more than two decades of existence, ACPV has hit its stride. In the pipeline is a makeover of the Enel Group’s 80,000-sqm historic office in Rome with new transparent glass façades, A2A’s vertical village headquarters soaring 144 meters above Milan and the ultra-luxury hotel Rosewood Amaala on the west coast of Saudi Arabia that will weave together wellness and sustainability, while the highly-anticipated Bulgari Hotel Roma has just opened its doors in the Italian jeweler’s birthplace. Simultaneously, Citterio debuted his first project for Cassina during Milan Design Week last year in a new collaboration with the high-end furniture manufacturer. “I believe that our role is to imagine the future of cities, hotels, offices and residential spaces by carefully curating the evolution of the built environment,” Viel concludes. “We must understand how people prefer to use their shared and private spaces. It is about giving solutions to questions that maybe no one is asking yet. Our projects are, in fact, responses that we give with attention and sensitivity to the surrounding urban, natural and social contexts.”
