Vudafieri-Saverino Goes Bold with Post-Memphis Space for Milan Restaurant Spica
“It was a dangerous game,” says Vudafieri-Saverino co-founder Tiziano Vudafieri of the firm’s brief for Spica, a restaurant in the Porta Venezia district of Milan helmed by two chefs, one versed in Indian cuisine and one in Italian. “We were asked to combine the Milan of radical designers like Mendini or Sottsass, who was deeply influenced by India, with the elegance and rigor of Franco Albini and Vico Maigstretti, direct descendants of the modern movement that, through Le Corbusier, profoundly changed the codes of colonial India.”
But the team was clearly up to the challenge, as proven by the bold post-colonial, post-Memphis interiors of the 3,800-square-foot dining destination. Stripes of neon paint break up the largely open space, with ficus trees sprouting through terrazzo floors and a graceful bar with integrated overhead storage facing the bustling street beyond the ample windows.
As for the name, “Spica is a star in the constellation of the Virgin that is perceived as a unit, but that is actually a binary system composed of two stars,” says the firm’s co-founder Claudio Saverino. “It was certainly chosen by the chefs because it represents their partnership. But it is singular how the strength of our architecture studio comes from two souls as well.”
Read more: Robert McKinley’s Montrose Cheese & Wine and Rosie Cannonball Bring 1960s Europe to Houston
