Casa Fornasetti

Living here means living immersed in creativity.

There is a huge archive with tens of thousands

of different drawings and objects,

and folders, a library with images that inspire us a lot.

We are in the house museum, office, laboratory, archive,

where I was born and where I have more or less

always lived and continue to live and work.

It's a daily immersion that still amazes me,

where I rediscover new decorative designs.

My name is Barnaba Fornasetti.

I'm the artistic director of the company

that was founded by my father between the 40s and the 50s.

The largest building, the one on the street,

was built by my grandfather between the 19th and 20th century.

My father, according to my grandfather,

who had planned everyone's lives,

was supposed to become the manager of the family business.

But my father wasn't interested:

he was an artist, he was already painting.

In the end my grandfather gave up and decided to build

the first two rooms to create my father's studio.

And there my father began, in addition to painting,

to experiment - printing lithography with the presses,

engraving with the hand press.

And a lot of artists came from all over Italy but also from other countries

to print their art books and their lithographs.

De Chirico and Campigli came here,

Manzù, Fontana and many others.

Somehow they left a mark,

also in my father's creativity: you can see it from his works.

He was an explorer of genres, of art from all times.

Like my father, I am a collector too – one, I would say, who creates collections

not necessarily linked to value

or to a logical thread, but instinct.

I have collected masks, especially when I go on trips.

I brought home masks from Asia, Africa, some from Venice,

and I put them on a small wall where there is a passage

between the antechamber and a study.

I love to collect ties and vests.

I made most of the ties myself.

We have worked with a company for years that made ties

there was this collaboration.

I think it is an object that belongs to the establishment.

It is somewhat traditional, but that's exactly why I like

to transgress with the decoration on the ties.

The record collection is the largest I have.

I love music a lot. I have this, let's say,

frustration of not having learned to play an instrument,

but every now and then, I play DJ sets for my friends

and that amuses me.

My father had a passion for vests, and collected them.

I have collected more,

in addition to the ones he had created and designed.

I have kept them all, mainly in the archive,

but also in my wardrobe.

The Biedermeier glasses collection was started by my father.

It still is inside a window.

It's a very popular collection among those who visit the house.

In our work, in the objects and decorations that we do,

you can always find collections.

Each decoration is a bit of a collection: there’s trompe l'oeil

collections of books, of butterflies, of historical relics

and of architectural works.

Everything is to be reused, recycled in a certain sense.

The secret is to use what already exists

and make it relevant to today's needs.

There is an episode that I like to cite.

I was around three or four years old

and me and my father were in the garden.

I brought him a hortensia leaf with a small daisy on top,

and he took advantage of the idea to create a tray

with the same image as decoration.

Maybe this is the first collaboration between me and him.

I take care of the garden personally.

I love it very much, and I let the plants grow wild too.

Spending time taking care of plants,

observing them, sometimes even talking to them, is essential.

It's a method that also teaches you a kind of slowness,

which I find important today in order to find a balance

with the frenzy of modern life: everything is a rush

with work and all other things...

On the contrary, in the garden you have to follow the timing of nature,

which teaches you to have patience.

Today Fornasetti is a force that teaches us to observe and meditate

on this joy that a decorated object can bring,

and how it can also talk and communicate to us.