Antonio Citterio presents Thea

by Stefano Casciani

For many years now, as an architect you have approached the question of living in an increasingly more globalised cultural context. Examples of this are your recent residential tower projects, particularly in the Far East. In what way does this awareness of new lifestyle habits influence your design of spaces for conviviality, especially with regards to this new model for Arclinea? 

Thea was intended as a physical and conceptual interface between the two separate yet complementary kitchen zones that are today trending widely in medium and high bracket homes, especially in the Far East. These are the Wet kitchen, the real work area with focus on top performance, and the Show kitchen, an integral part of the living area and where the final stages in food preparation can be shared, the family can eat breakfast together or aperitifs can be served to friends. Thea provides a solution for both Wet and Show kitchens thanks to the wall system that separates but also connects them, making rational use of space and therefore creating a kitchen that adapts beautifully to large rooms and also smaller homes. 

Your projects for Arclinea always aim to create not only products with a high technical quality, but also interiors to be lived in and shared, featuring clear simple design. This is the case with Thea, a technically complex kitchen that however enjoys very clean-cut lines. In order to successfully achieve this, how important are details, like the elimination of conventional handles?​

It’s more a question of transformation than elimination. The “continuous handle” kitchen has been a widespread, popular choice for quite some time now, one that Arclinea itself has helped to spread since the seventies. I therefore decided to take this concept and give it a contemporary makeover for this model, extending the range of solutions in the Collection and at the same time paying special attention to the quality of the details. So even turning the classic handle into a horizontal or vertical “groove”, while helping to improve accessibility and functionality, also simplifies storage and transforms it into accessorised walls. The impression is that of elegant minimal continual wood panelling, which in turn makes the kitchen look like a second living-room.

So we could say that with Thea you attempted to create a more architectonic space also for this new kind of “hybrid” kitchen? Which other project solutions help to make it a zone that is both functional and yet convivial, in the true sense of the word?​

One very important factor for the simple minimal appearance of Thea is definitely our having worked on integration between horizontal and vertical surfaces, equipping them both with the characteristic Gola Profile as a continuous handle. To completely fulfil our design intent, we added several other components, solutions and first-time details that make this kitchen even more user friendly. Frame is definitely one of these, a system of doors that links the Wet and Show areas, built into the accessorised wall with the vertical Gola Profile, as is the very thin Waterfall worktop with its detailed corners and Canto, the snack bar with its tapered edge on the three internal sides. Like all Arclinea products, Thea is part of a system, the Arclinea Collection, where each component, even from different models, can be used with the others. For example, the Show kitchen features the Madia, the new unit from Arclinea Winery Collection. This gives us great design flexibility, in terms both of size and choice of accessories and finishes. I therefore believe we have succeeded in our intention to create a new kitchen that however encompasses all the elements of great experience in constructing convivial spaces with an architectonic flavour.

Art direction: Juma
Video: Forte, @about_forte