Luca Bombassei
Studio

How Memphis came to Venice

Luca Bombassei | The patron and collector arranges work by the Milan design group alongside a Canaletto in his palazzo. By Georgina Adam

The architect, collector and art patron Luca Bombassei is sitting comfortably on a long, pale sofa in the 15th-century Palazzo Diedo in Venice, just around the corner from the Accademia art gallery. He is surrounded with art that dates from the past; there is a surprising diversity in his taste. Above him hangs a traditional painting — Canaletto’s “Architectural Capriccio with Classical Ruins” (1723) — and opposite stands a blackness-seeming pottery piece, “Life of Forms” (2017) by the American artist Nathalie Provosty.

“If you have the chance to create a dialogue between the two works, there are so many details in the Canaletto and then the Provosty is just all black,” he says. Beside him on a table stands a sculpture by Ettore Sottsass of the Memphis Group of postmodern designers.

The place almost dictates the art as much as the owner. In the adjoining library, a wall is covered with Venetian glassware, 20th-21st century pieces displayed on shelving by Italian architect and designer Osvaldo Borsani. “When you have Venice, you project some special light that reflects through them,” Bombassei says. “They make me feel more Venetian!”

Bombassei was born in 1966 and lives between the city of Venice, Nardò in Apulia (certified farmhouse) and Milan, where his architectural practice specialises in the restoration of historical homes. “In Italy, there is not a big divide in the profession of architect and interior designer,” he says. “As I am a collector myself, I understand what it means to build a house around art. I have this sensibility.”

He was brought up surrounded by art; his parents, the majority shareholders in the brake disc company Brembo and collectors of Italian Masters, still today have an apartment in the neo-Gothic Casa dei Tre Oci on the island of Giudecca in Venice. As a young man he had to go through the cultural institute to access the discotheque Piccolo Mondo, one evening. “My friends thought it was just incredible to live above a museum,” he laughs.

Bombassei’s Venetian home reflects the diversity of his taste, and he says he likes changing his mind and experimenting on what he can become “a better platform” for design. Along with the Canaletto and the Provosty, there is a portrait by Alex Katz (“East Interior”, 1979), an Emilio Guido Campo artwork from 1999 and Fausto Melotti’s 1982 LED piece “Lasantità…I am a man…” which stands almost three metres tall with red and yellow discs, spelling out the title. In the dining room there is a Sottsass Japan, a colourful stack of bulbous shapes, and a mushroom-like vase Aulenti lamp. It is all shifted around regularly: “I always want to see a different perspective.”

Bombassei’s first love is Sottsass, of whom he has considerable holdings — from objects and furniture to limited editions. The designer, who experimented with colour, patterns and shapes and made furniture, glass and ceramic items, was part of a radical group who worked in Milan. “He and his [Memphis] Group represented a period of innovation and they changed the way we think about design, bringing quirkiness and colour into a historic context like Milan and Memphis. “Sottsass is my triangle of love.”

In Milan, Bombassei’s office is lined with wood panelling by Pietro Fioravanti, a recreation of the decor originally in the Milanese apartment La Casa di Fantasia, today a private residence. Above is the “Architectural Capriccio with Classical Ruins” (1723) by Canaletto. Left: a sculpture of Hercules

What are his plans for the future? He looks a bit baffled, admitting that he can’t resist buying when he sees something curious. I fall in love with new places and things all the time,” he says, so for the moment, he continues to plan, step-by-step. As he says, “Collecting is not speculation, and if you fall out of love with any [artwork], then it becomes speculation.”