New retro’: Color and Light Shape a Vivid Neapolitan Home
New retro’ unfolds as a vivid apartment in Marano di Napoli, Italy, shaped by architect Carmine Abate for clients with an unapologetically fashion-driven brief. Inside this elevated home, color, gloss, and tactility steer everyday life while wide sliders open the rooms to a sweeping terrace facing Vesuvio. The result is a residential interior that treats pattern, light, and material as an expressive toolkit rather than quiet background.
From the living room, a band of sliding glass pulls the eye straight toward Vesuvio framed between hedges and sky. Sun washes across pale flooring and bounces off colored glass.
This apartment in Marano di Napoli is conceived by architect Carmine Abate as an experiment in domestic bravado, where traditional dwelling codes stretch toward fashion-led living. The project is an urban home yet behaves like a stage, using vivid finishes, patterned surfaces, and a long, linear plan to choreograph movement between interior rooms and a broad terrace. Color, not just walls and doors, organizes how the family moves, gathers, and relaxes.
Setting The Scene
Entry lands in an open living and dining volume lined with herringbone wood underfoot and full-height glazing along one side. A soft mustard sofa, graphic black-and-white armchairs, and art tapestries sit against pale walls, so the furniture reads almost like characters against a neutral set. Beyond, the terrace becomes extension, with stone cladding, outdoor lounges, and a long table arranged to keep the volcanic horizon always in view. One simple move anchors the plan: the shared rooms sit on axis with the landscape, so daily routines constantly reconnect to light and distance.
Color As Architecture
At the heart of the apartment, a multi-color stair cuts diagonally across the living area in iridescent glass shades of green, amber, and magenta. This translucent plane doubles as balustrade and partition, pulling colored shadows onto the herringbone floor and dining table throughout the day. A deep red wall runs alongside, hiding storage and framing the stair’s lighter tones, so circulation reads as a vivid stripe rather than a neutral connector. Color here is structural, setting up boundaries, backdrops, and thresholds instead of relying on solid partitions alone.
Rooms With Attitude
The kitchen shifts gear with matte gray cabinetry and a dark island that grounds the more saturated living area. Tall, handleless fronts keep the room quiet visually, letting objects and artwork on adjacent plinths bring character without crowding the view. In the primary bedroom, teal wall panels frame a wide padded headboard, finished in ribbed upholstery for a tactile, almost theatrical presence. A compact blue lounge chair, warm bedding, and a graphic painting keep the palette punchy while sliding panels conceal storage and the route to the bathroom.
Graphic Wet Rooms
Bathrooms push the chromatic play further with checkerboard-style tiles and unexpected fixtures in mustard and olive. One room layers soft square tiles across floor and shower, then slices in a black-and-white border that draws the eye along the threshold. Custom cabinetry curves gently, avoiding harsh corners and catching reflected light from glass partitions. Open shelving in warm wood tones keeps daily objects visible yet orderly, so routine tasks feel part of the apartment’s composed rhythm.
Back outside, the terrace reads as another living room under open sky. Low sofas, woven chairs, and patterned deckchairs cluster around tables, leaving enough clear floor for movement and views. Evening light hits the stone wall and the distant volcano at once, tying this unapologetically colorful interior back to its broader Neapolitan landscape.
Photography by Carlo Oriente
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