CASA M_025 by Provenzano Architetti Associati
CASA M_025 occupies the second floor of an early 20th-century Liberty building in Palermo, Italy, reworked by Provenzano Architetti Associati. The apartment respects its historic structure while shifting the daily focus toward a generous, convivial living core. Period doors, new oak flooring, and a layered chromatic palette guide the renovation, bringing contemporary comfort to a quietly grand city home.
Light slides across the vaulted entrance, catching carved plaster and the warm grain of oak. A sequence of tall doors pulls the eye toward a deep blue kitchen, where plants and pendant lamps gather around a central island.
This apartment is a Liberty-era home in Palermo, reimagined by Provenzano Architetti Associati as a contemporary residence that still honors its early 1900s shell. The project keeps the original enfilade layout, yet redirects everyday life toward a shared living core with kitchen, dining, and lounge in close dialogue. Interior character rests on color, crafted carpentry, and a precise selection of contemporary and historic furniture.
Reworking The Enfilade
From the vaulted entrance hall, a run of three interconnected rooms forms the heart of the living area, each one facing the balcony and joined in sequence. This traditional enfilade is preserved, yet the kitchen shifts position to connect directly with the living room, transforming it from service zone into the social engine of the home. A secondary corridor now organizes the quieter night rooms, separating circulation for rest from the more public front rooms. Historic structure sets the rhythm, while new use patterns give it contemporary purpose.
Liberty Details Reinterpreted
The building’s Liberty character stays legible in decorative ceilings, internal friezes, and especially the traditional “palermitane” doors in pitch pine. These doors, with their deep wooden embrasures, are carefully restored and adapted so the thickness now conceals discreet grilles for air-conditioning splits, keeping technology out of sight. Original brick-and-iron vaults in the bathrooms remain in place, their industrial texture now set against new porcelain stoneware surfaces. Across the apartment, this dialogue between preserved elements and precise insertions keeps the historic fabric present without freezing it.
Color As Architecture
A new oak parquet replaces compromised flooring, giving continuous warmth underfoot and a neutral base for bolder chromatic moves. In line with Liberty-era tradition, each room takes on a dominant tone, echoing the nineteenth-century custom of pairing vault color and dado. Walls, ceiling curves, and bespoke millwork work together so color feels built-in rather than applied. In the kitchen, deep blue envelops cabinetry and volume around a generous central island with wood snack tops, while the ceiling rises to a majestic vault over four meters (13.1 feet) high.
Furnishing The Everyday
Custom furniture anchors the rooms, often acting as architectural devices rather than freestanding objects. A large living-room bookcase and the TV console read as full-height partitions, structuring views and storage while folding into the overall composition. Around them, a careful mix of contemporary classics and historic pieces sets the tone: the Clay table by Desalto pairs with Thonet 209 M chairs, while Cassina’s Cicognino table, Ico Parisi’s 816 Pa console, the Taccia lamp, and Roche Bobois upholstery round out the ensemble. Hanging above, Flos 265 pendants in the kitchen and Luceplan’s Koinè in the dining room trace slender arcs of light that pick out volumes and color shifts.
Greenery And Art In Dialogue
Planting runs as a continuous layer through the home, treated as architecture rather than afterthought. With consultancy from Federico Lo Verso, species are chosen for their response to light, hue, and material, reinforcing the sense of continuity between interior and exterior. Commissioned paintings by Palermo artist Luca Raimondi add another register, placing contemporary works against historic surfaces and tuned color fields. Even in the bathrooms, where vaulted brick meets porcelain and custom cabinetry, this calibrated mix of matter, color, and living elements keeps the apartment grounded in the present.
As daylight shifts along the balcony rooms and down the corridor, oak, pigment, and foliage register every change. CASA M_025 stands as a layered interior, where Liberty bones, domestic rituals, and a precise chromatic idea meet in everyday use. The project returns a century-old apartment to active life, one carefully furnished room at a time.
Photography by Laura Crucitti/livinginsideagency
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