Private house – Stockholm

residential. Located in Östermalm, one of the most modern  and exclusive neighbourhoods in Stockholm, the apartment is housed in a nineteenth-century building. It has been  finely restored by architectural studio Claesson Koivisto Rune - an award-winning multi-disciplinary laboratory  of architecture and design, and the first in Sweden to  exhibit in the international section of the Biennale of Architecture in Venice, in 2004.The original space has been completely reinvented to ensure continuity: the rooms have been enlarged and the passage between one and the next occurs almost imperceptibly, with a sense of homogeneity accompanied and emphasized by the lighting. The kitchen has merged with the dining room and all the open spaces come together in a single corridor, where soft fabrics conceal the wall cabinets, and also serve to erase the boundaries between the rooms.These are interiors that the extreme simplicity  of the design never renders inflexible, as they naturally  lend themselves to different interpretations and uses,  at the same time intimate yet convivial. Here a very sophisticated, typically Scandinavian, simplicity reigns, complemented by the use of natural, living and strictly ecological materials, such as the large wooden floorboards and the brass that lights the kitchen and dining room. The presence of unexpected elements on the walls - a chair rising above the fireplace to become a clock, the stuffed, oversize glasses, moose heads - creates intrigue without astonishment, perfectly set as they are within the harmonious atmosphere of the whole. Unusual combinations abound, such as in the bathroom: the simple geometry of the In-Out bathtub − designed by Benedini Associati, here in its island configuration − stands out thanks to both the porcelain chandelier and the walls, one tiled with antique azulejos (Spanish ornamental ceramic tiles), the other covered using the Moroccan technique of tadelakt (traditional finishing in the hammams and bathrooms of the Middle East).