Undivided Piano Nobile — Reconfiguration and Restoration

The apartment occupied the entire piano nobile of a liberty-style building on a quiet street in the heart of Brera. At approximately 280 square metres, it had been subdivided at some point in the postwar decades into a configuration that no longer reflected either the original architectural logic or the requirements of contemporary residential use.

The acquisition was structured around a clear architectural thesis: that the original floor plan, recoverable through careful reading of the structural walls and surviving decorative elements, would produce a residence of a quality the market was not pricing into the current asking figure.

Following acquisition, the project involved the removal of all non-structural partition walls, a full survey of the original ceiling heights and decorative plasterwork, and the development of a new spatial organisation that restored the enfilade sequence of the principal rooms while creating a contemporary service core at the rear of the plan.

The completed residence comprises four principal rooms with ceiling heights of 4.2 metres, a double-aspect salon overlooking the internal courtyard and the street, and a kitchen and service area that does not compromise the proportional integrity of the main living spaces. The result is a property that belongs firmly to its building and its neighbourhood — and to no other period or typology.