Dinners based on Ayurvedic cuisine, meditation classes, yoga and breathing lessons but also themed meetings: a apartment conceived as a space dedicated to sharingborn to welcome moments of exchange and conceived to be rented or booked to take care of oneself. Thus was born in Milan Casa Miragea declaration of love for beauty from the hostess, the singer-songwriter and multidisciplinary artist Marianne Miragewho shaped every corner of the house according to his philosophy of life, supported on the structural front by the architect Cristina Casadei.
Casa Mirage: what is it and how was Marianne Mirage’s ‘design nest’ born?
To make the landlady understand that that1960s apartmentrun down and neglected, it could have been the right one, it was a detail: during the inspection he noticed a small nido placed in the outdoor space that seemed to her to be synonymous with a new beginning but also the symbol of a safe place, a place to take refuge. “This is exactly what I look for in a house: a calm, quiet place, where you can feel at ease. So I decided that I would make it a nest, for everyone,” Marianne tells us.
The house has been subjected to a renovation intervention on the structural front, mainly concentrated on an internal element that was quite frequent in the homes of those years: a very long corridor originally functional to the division of the spaces and not very in line with the current project.
Starting from the assumption that it is a space not limited to a certain routine, Casa Mirage was born as a place inclined to open up to others: “I wanted each of the spaces in this apartment to represent a specific sensation,” continues Mirage.
Here’s how, for example, a previously white and anonymous wall was transformed by Sarah Ricciardi in a library-sculpture with spectacular expressiveness.
The interiors of Casa Mirage
The inspiration for the interiors comes entirely from the Years ’70: an era that Marianne Mirage feels very close to. Sinuous shapesbright and welcoming colours, but above all well-declared intentions: “I find a lot of myself in that decade, so I decided to have fun and experiment”.
One aspect that clearly emerges is the presence of a widespread femininity: not only as character or style but as active participation in describing the identity of the house.
The motivation comes from one of Marianne Mirage’s greatest passions – and profession: yoga. She explains: “The female space is always talked about too little. When I started to approach the world of yoga I was told that ‘even‘ means union between masculine and feminine, between day and night: the sole represents male domination, the moon (and therefore the Night) the female one.
From here, I thought that we are used to living the day, we celebrate it by taking full advantage of it; while we live very little at night, if not to stay up late or with the negativity typical of stressful situations. We enjoy little, instead, of its soft identity and of his slowness. I understood that I would praise the night, the woman, her softness”.
What Casa Mirage transfers, observing it, it is really a sense of reassuring softness quite immediate. You feel protected and cared for.
For the palette chromaticMarianne has chosen to draw from the warm desert colors. A harmonious orange, sometimes muted, sometimes accentuated, runs through all the rooms, between complements and load-bearing elements.
An expressive kitchen, custom-designed
It is emblematic of this and, even more, of the in-depth study dedicated to feminine grace, the Kitchen: custom designed together with Elmarwas designed to allow those busy preparing the food not to turn their backs on the guests.
An apparently only functional choice, which has unconsciously given rise to the singular formal choice of using a sinuous silhouette to draw the peninsula hob: it is enough to observe it once to realize that it recalls the image of a pregnant woman. Even the color It was made to measure: the new colour is now available in the range under the name ‘Mirage’.
The bedroom: a space for the soul
There is a space, inside Casa Mirage, that more than any other is similar to the owner’s personality: the bedroom. Designed with almost desert-like colours, it reassures and warms: “I chose these colours because they remind me of the shades created by the light reflecting in the iurta: sensual lamps, natural light and chromatic references that accentuate their brilliance, contrasting details”.
But the highlight is undoubtedly the bed: a recovered and original piece from the seventiespurchased by Marianne on a re-used platform. She is particularly keen on it, because it is the space dedicated to rest and therefore the place where the next day’s well-being is prepared.
Even the bath is the result of a deep thought: usually a closed and hidden place, it was conceived as a meditative and welcoming space. To do so, Marianne took inspiration from Japanese culture and its domestic practices, well told in the Book of Shadow by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki (1933). In the pages, the bathroom is portrayed as an environment used to introspection more intimate, therefore connected to dark and collected palettes compared to light and bright shades. The choice of limit the presence of mirrors as much as possiblepreferring instead earthy shades and natural materialssupports the awareness that it is a place deeply connected with inner observation.
In general, the entire Casa Mirage project reflects the artist’s philosophy of life, which finds joy and serenity when in harmony with nature in its most varied expressions: a choice that can be found, for example, in the selection of companies (all made in Italy) and, consequently, in the materials used. Among others, the lino is the absolute protagonist.
As well as the companies (Ri-generation, Eccentrico Ceramiche, Flos with the iconic burgundy Diabolo in the bedroom, Kohro, TUBES and Saba), some are involved in the project artists personally chosen by Marianne Mirage on the basis of previous and intimate knowledge which, first and foremost, is based on esteem: is the example of Serena Confalonieriwho Mirage believes has a strong, feminine vision that she intensely wanted to bring to the project; Paolo Gonzatowith the lightened marble table: a unique and hollow piece, which tells the story of this wonderful material, leaving aside the heaviness with which it is usually associated; the same, for Ilaria Bianchiwho worked on a singular shelf positioned at an unusual height in all its beauty.
Marianne Mirage’s relationship with design
Faced with such a well-curated and studied project, coherent in every aspect, a question arises spontaneously: What is Marianne Mirage’s relationship with design? With great spontaneity, the artist explains to us how she is constantly fascinated by beauty in all its forms: “Beauty attracts me, always and a lot. I am passionate about art, music, design, stones. I find that the passion for design goes beyond the ability to identify a valuable piece, passing mostly through personal taste and the heart with which one chooses the pieces to place in one’s home.
In particular, for me, beauty is represented, above all, by nature: I feel very connected to this form of life. At home, at the moment, there are more than 40 types of plants including the incense plant and different species of Mexican oregano.”
For Marianne Mirage, beauty is found in everything that reflects what a person carries inside himself. So, a beautiful house is a house that reflects the soul.
Casa Mirage will be open from the beginning of September 2024; you can book through the Instagram profile @casamirage___
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Source: living.corriere.it
