Interview is in Italian.
Born in 1954, Rodolfo Dordoni is a member of the Milanese tradition that generated master designers such as Castiglioni, Zanuso, Magistretti, Citterio and de Lucchi.
Dordoni Architects was formed in Milan by Rodolfo Dordoni, Luca Zaniboni and Alessandro Acerbi (who died prematurely in 2007). The studio specialises in architecture and interior design, focusing mainly on the residential sector with designs for private villas and houses, although it also produces designs for industrial and retail spaces, offices, showrooms, restaurants, hotels, yachts and exhibition design.
He originally pursued architecture and industrial design upon graduating from the Politecnico University in 1979.
Dordoni has since discovered a broad spectrum covering architecture, art direction, interior design and product design. In whichever form, Dordoni’s design is famed for its formal stringency, elegance, essentiality, and innovative details. His personal signature is unmistakable.
His approach to industrial design embraces not only the project, but also its image strategy and its marketing.
For years he has worked as a designer and a consultant for high level brands, ( especially product design with Minotti ) and for shops, showrooms and exhibitions with Panasonic and Dolce & Gabbana.
Rodolfo Dordoni has a vast repertoire in product design typologies, encompassing domestic / contract lamps and furniture, storage systems, kitchens, bathroom accessories, objects, carpets and electrical switches.
As a designer he has collaborated with Italian and overseas firms Acerbis, Arteluce, Artemide, Barovier & Toso, Bros, BTicino, Cappellini, Casakit, Cidue, Crasseveig, DeSede, Dornbracht, Driade, Ferlea, Flos, Flou, Fontana Arte, Foscarini, Halifax, Imel, Jab, Lema, Montina, Molteni, Moroso, Minotti, RB Rossana, Sarila, Schopenhauer, Tisettanta, Venini and Vistosi.
As Art director, Dordoni has coordinated the company images for Foscarini, Bros, Imel, Schopenhauer and Minotti.
Since 1995 he has collaborated with Dolce & Gabbana, where he is responsible for the interior design and styling of shops, corners, showrooms and residential spaces.
Projects of interest
Zero Restaurant, Milan
The Zero restaurant is located in one of the most central and traditional milanese streets behind a burnished brass gate formed by overlapping circles that seems to quote the Art Nouveau floral tradition. Studio Dordoni’s project has paid extreme attention to the sober furniture, the elegant and refined finishes, the history and the features of the area.
The surface of the restaurant is 200 square meters, subdivided into three rooms, which are joined by the kitchen at full view that acts as a kind of central hub.
Villa Forte dei Marmi , Italy
Project partners: Pietro Savorelli, Dordoni Architetti
Photographer: Pietro Savorelli
A villa in Forte dei Marmi that displays a balance between luxury and sobriety, elegance and sense of measure, rich materials and attention to detail, in a rigor of an essential atmosphere. The enclosure opens to the landscape, crossed by the fluid space that includes the living area, the garden and the swimming pool in a single environment.
Inspired by the Roman villas in Versilia, the path of access is formed by slabs of Travertine, simply resting on the ground. The internal route from the entrance area penetrates the entire house, with Travertine stone for the floors, a material that returns in horizontal strips for the wall in front of the full-height boiseries in Burma teak.
The ground floor, clad in the same stone, is lightened by the large opening of the living area, facing the water, with three white metal frames organizing the undivided space of the kitchen, living room and dining area. Refined materials and details, like the vanishing guides of the casements, enhance all the spaces.
The studio, close to the entrance, appears like a suspended volume given onto, through a glass wall, the distribution triple-height stairs vertically crossing the villa’s structure.
All around the outdoor swimming pool, a large wooden floor on which is positioned one of the three outdoor patios protected by light metal berceaux supporting curtains and lights.
At the first floor the master bedrooms, overlooking the pool, are screened from the sun by wooden sliding panels perfectly integrated in the Mediterranean scrub and giving to the villa a lighter compositional structure.
Every bath is faced with a different type of marble, all changing for colour and porosity: Saint-Laurent, Calacatta Vagli, green onyx, red Levanto.
The basement, connected to an outdoor patio that allows natural daylight to enter, contains a fitness area, a spa, and a wine cellar – a unique place for meditation – covered in teak.
The fitness zone opens on a spectacular glass wall containing the volume of water of the outdoor swimming pool reflecting the filtered light on the adjoining mirroring wall.
The entire lighting system discreetly marks the distribution paths with grooves containing lighting bodies fully recessed in the ceiling, giving to spot lights or floor lamps the task to create a more intimate and cosy atmosphere of representative spaces, along with the contribution of natural daylight coming from outside.
A project that responds to needs of simple but fundamental aspirations like beauty and comfort; a project of evident but measured elegance, skilful mixing of geometric rigor, classical memories and ironic décor
The headquarters of Dordoni Architetti is located in Milan (Via Bramante 29) in a 400 sq.m. converted rice warehouse.
