INTERIORS I Milano
Three decades ago, photography, sculpture and design collector Ettore Molinario and Rossella Colombari, an art curator specialising in twentieth-century historic design, were brought together by their shared passion for art, creating a universe of their own. Today, that universe is known as Casa Museo, occupying the site of a former silversmith's workshop in Milan which Ettore and Rossella, together with architects Claudio Lazzarini and Carl Pickering, not only restored but completely reimagined.
As its owners like to say, Casa Museo was created to provide a home for works of art. Today, the collection comprises more than 1,000 pieces, predominantly photographs, alongside ancient sculptures from Southeast Asia dating from the third to the twelfth centuries and historic Italian design pieces by some of the twentieth century's most significant architects and designers, including Carlo Scarpa, Melchiorre Bega, Mario Gottardi, Ignazio Gardella, Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Ettore Zaccari, Osvaldo Borsani, Joseph Hoffmann, Carlo Bugatti, Eugenio and Mario Quarti, Studio BBPR, Gio Ponti, Willy Rizzo, Pierluigi Colli and Antonia Campi.
At the request of Les Dedans, Ettore and Rossella agreed to introduce readers to their own extraordinary universe.
LD: Tell us about the design of the house and the way the spaces flow into one another.
E&R: The very first line drawn by the architects was a circle—a suspended walkway floating above the central space. Beneath it, a counter-circle descends into the conversation area. This dual movement, one rising and the other descending, defines the heart of Casa Museo. When you sit there, you feel embraced by the architecture. It is a direct reference to theatre, both ancient and modern—the circular stage and the geometry of Greek and Roman theatres.
This theatrical language continues throughout the house. There are almost no doors; instead, heavy, dramatic curtains divide the spaces—not to close them off, but to activate them.
Light also plays a fundamental role. There are no conventional windows. The only natural light enters from above as zenithal light, allowing your gaze to focus either on the sky or on the works of art within Casa Museo. Every movement through the house becomes part of a rhythm, one that we carefully composed together with architects Lazzarini and Pickering.
LD: Your home is an intensely personal project that also functions as an art gallery. What philosophy guides the way you build your collection?
E: For me, collecting is not about acquiring objects. Imagine walking into a cave. You move slowly and silently through its darkness, guided only by your own light—a torch—with which you gradually discover things that have always been there, hidden from view. That is exactly how I experience works of art. I am guided neither by logic nor by market trends, but by instinct, by the feeling that an image contains something I must confront.
The works I choose are fragments brought to the surface from these inner explorations, and every photograph that enters the collection becomes a way of illuminating another part of myself.
My wife, Rossella Colombari, plays an essential role in shaping our collection. For more than forty years, she has devoted herself to historic Italian design, making architecture and design the work of her life. That is why she compares this house to a gallery—not in the commercial sense, but as a way of organising space.
Every detail is carefully considered: the balance between materials, the dialogue between a photograph and a sculpture, the rhythm that unfolds from one room to the next. Whenever we add a new piece to the collection, we discuss it, live with it and move it from one place to another. We rarely agree immediately, yet I have complete trust in my wife's instinct. She possesses the rare ability to understand how a single object can transform the balance of an entire space.
Photography: Cristopher Ghioldi; images courtesy of Casa Museo Molinario Colombari.
Words: Luminița Diculescu/ interview by Andreea Dicianu
Discover the full version of this story in Volume IV.