Casa PPZ by Mauro Carta
Casa PPZ anchors a 140-square-metre apartment renovation in Milan, Italy by Mauro Carta, set within an early 20th-century building of high ceilings and moulded frames. The project reworks the apartment for a young art- and music-loving couple, pairing open-plan living with preserved Milanese character and a calm, contemporary interior palette. Sunlight, pale walls, and expressive materials guide the rooms from morning gatherings to quieter nights.
Morning light slides across the herringbone parquet and climbs the tall white walls, catching the edges of mouldings and the spines of stacked books. A long green sofa draws the eye toward the open kitchen, where a veined marble island holds the center of daily life.
Casa PPZ is a renovated apartment in Milan, Italy, designed by Mauro Carta for a young couple who prize music, art, and the character of early 20th-century architecture. The project sits inside an elegant historic building yet works as a contemporary home, shaped by an interior palette that balances preserved Milanese elements with new surfaces and furnishings. High ceilings, tall windows, and moulded doors stay in place, while cabinetry, shelving, and stonework push the rooms toward a lighter, more flexible way of living.
At the heart of the apartment, the layout condenses circulation to create a large open-plan living area that gathers cooking, dining, and lounging into one continuous volume. A custom iron and wood bookcase stands at the entrance as a porous screen, its verticals carrying plants and books while hiding the working kitchen behind. This single move sets the tone: new furniture-scale elements act as both storage and architecture, allowing the historic shell to breathe.
Living Room As Gallery
In the main room, walls double as informal galleries for art and books, framing everyday routines with color and texture. The television nests between slim bookshelves, so media blends into a larger composition of reading and display rather than dominating the wall. A generous modular sofa in muted green anchors conversation and listening, oriented toward both the windows and a large artwork that adds a deep red counterpoint. Warm wooden dining chairs gather around a simple table, keeping the palette grounded and approachable.
Kitchen Behind The Screen
Beyond the entrance bookcase, the kitchen reads as a calm, built-in volume held between pale cabinetry and the bright marble island. Handles are minimized so the tall units read as quiet planes, allowing the stone pattern to carry the visual weight. Overhead lighting runs in linear tracks, echoing the long axis of the room and washing the worktop with even light for cooking and gathering. Plants threaded through the shelving soften the metal structure and bring a gentle vertical rhythm to the scene.
Private Rooms In Soft Tones
The master suite shifts to an even softer palette, with light walls, simple bedding, and pale timber underfoot. A walk-through wardrobe connects sleeping area and bathroom, making daily rituals feel continuous rather than segmented. In the bedroom, slim pendant lights drop from the high ceiling, their black cords cutting a quiet graphic line against the neutral surfaces. Occasional pieces—a ladder used for clothes, a wooden bedside crate—keep the room relaxed and personal.
Marble As Focal Element
Bathrooms turn to marble as the expressive note, each slab chosen for pronounced veining and set against restrained fittings. In one, warm-toned stone wraps the shower wall and vanity, its bold pattern reflected in a wide mirror under a halo of concealed lighting. Another room uses cooler gray stone around the bathtub, offset by a timber cabinet and a simple white basin, so the eye lands first on the texture of the surface. Across both, clean-lined fixtures and neutral floors let the stone carry the drama without overwhelming the compact rooms.
A longitudinal load-bearing wall threads through the apartment, treated not as an obstacle but as a spine that organizes nooks, passages, and storage. By carving niches and recesses into this thickness, the interior gains depth where it could have felt flat. As daylight shifts across the parquet and stone, Casa PPZ holds together through its measured palette, giving new routines a place within the enduring Milanese shell.
Photography by Davide Galli Atelier
Visit Mauro Carta
