Classical, Modern... or Classical, Modern?

In the choice of furnishings for the living space, one of the most frequent concerns is: to adopt a reassuring style, prestigious, timeless and therefore classic, or a modern style, with a strong creative personality?  Actually looking at the trend of contemporary design, the answer seems to be in the middle: indeed we are witnessing the proliferation of various mingling of the ancient and contemporary taste, whose combination produces often harmonies completely unexpected.

Just think to the most recent transformations of the spaces inside the historical buildings to modern restaurants, fancy shops or even SPA, with a modern design and an antique flavor as well. Or imagine the artistic production of Fernando and Humberto Campana, in which the language of the rococo is entirely reinvented in a modern and complex balance of shapes and figures.

In this process of historical synthesis of design, we can identify some key categories of approach:

1)    A predominantly modern furnishing, or even ethnic, disposed inside an old style space: it is the case of many recent renovations.

2)    A classical taste furnishing placed in a minimalist context: a Neo-Deco interior design style refers often to this prototype.

3)    A mixed style furnishing, where the ancient interacts with the modern: this is perhaps the most popular method, recognizable by the originality and unrepeatable uniqueness conferred to all the living spaces. However behind the apparent casualness in which are combined the various furnishing items, there’s always a delicate balance of aesthetic research which only an experienced hand can guarantee: when so many heterogeneous elements are disposed all together the risk of a chaotic result is very high.

4)    A style that reinvents the taste, the shapes  and the ideas from the past, and turns them into something very modern. An exemplary case is the "Modern Baroque" style , in which the contours of the Baroque and Rococo periods are reinterpreted with modern shapes and materials, such as steel or polyurethane resin often lacquered with very bright colors. The results are delightfully unpredictable.