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Antolini

Enchanting Bay

In the heart of the Mediterranean, Antolini’s® natural stone gives shape to a refined interior with an elegant Art Deco touch

Natural stone as the perfect aesthetic and design tablecloth for high-end projects. This sums up the impact of this fascinating flat in Malta, where lines and materials dance together thanks to the creativity of the Italian brand Antolini®, a world reference in the field of natural stone design.

With an extraordinary view over the rocky tip of Exiles Bay in Sliema, a town on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean island of Malta, an elegant 400-square-meter apartment was recently the subject of a radical interior restyling project. This project was curated by Sabrina Soldà of Sap Management, an international procurement company providing turnkey services for the design and renovation of properties, and Keith Pillow, founder of the Maltese architecture firm DAAA Haus.

The landscape surrounding the area, strongly characterized by the warm colors of the island’s traditional limestone which, here, comes together with all the blue shades of the azure sky and the turquoise and deep blues of the Mediterranean – at times streaked by the white ripples of the waves crashing on the coast – is the primary source of inspiration for this refined interior. The undisputed protagonists are wood, for the floors and boiserie, as well as natural stone, used not only for cladding but also to create custom-made furnishings, thanks to the workmanship of Marble&Granite Services, a Verona-based company specializing in the supply and custom processing of natural stones.

Even though limestone, a stone which is characteristic of the area but extremely brittle by nature, wasn’t a suitable solution; in choosing the natural stones the designers were drawn to earth tones, preferring shades that allowed visual coherence between the interior and exterior.

As Sabrina Soldà of Sap Management explains, the choice of Antolini® was a completely natural one: "being able to go to the company to personally choose the blocks with the customer was a unique experience, which generated a true appreciation for this brand. Seeing these wonderful stones… it was like entering an art museum. It’s in this moment that one becomes fully aware of how human artworks, created over the centuries, are so deeply indebted to nature, whose colors and shapes we have always tried to imitate."

What unites the living and dining areas, placed in direct visual communication, in addition to the oak, is the surprising lightness and brightness of the natural quartz surfaces of the Exclusive Collection by Antolini®. In the living area, if oak reigns supreme, the protagonist on the floor as well as the ceiling, featuring an elegant Art Deco touch, certainly draws the eye, as does the wall in which brass and wooden uprights interact with horizontal elements in Cristallo Lumix, featuring a pearly surface crossed by warm earth-toned veins.

Meanwhile, Cristallo Traslux, with its extraordinary translucency, gives shape to the top of the imposing dining table – which extends to approximately 360 cm – which it was necessary to compose with several slabs. The joint thus became an opportunity for precious detail, with a brass strip that draws two mirrored semicircles on the surface, a figure that is then also taken up in the geometry of the two legs supporting the table. The brass strip is an element that also returns in the floor, as a frame for the underlying wooden mosaic "carpet", a precious inlay that discreetly delineates a functional area without breaking the formal cleanliness of an environment otherwise devoid of continuity.

Divided from the dining area by a small lounge, the kitchen is more than just a purely functional environment. That is why the area dedicated to the preparation of food is hidden from view via a retractable kitchenette while the central island, with its sculptural shape, is the central focus and required several considerations. To optimize the design, it was in fact decided to cover an underlying wooden structure with strips of Cristallo Lumix, a solution that appears even more fitting due to the visual rendering of the combination of the various vertical elements which brings to mind the grooves of the Corinthian columns.

On the wall is a Wine Library, a showcase for exclusive bottles, in which the Patagonia Original "Extra" stands out. The surface of this extraordinary natural quartz from the Exclusive collection combines all of the colors that permeate the environment, a delicate balance of soft shades together with brass and black accents.

In the courtesy bathroom, notable for its minimal elegance, the dialogue continues between the oak of the wall boiserie and the natural stone, with one of Antolini®'s exclusive marbles, Dover White®, playing a significant role on the floor and cladding the sink surround. Also in this case, great attention was paid to the choice of the block and, in particular, to the positioning of the floor slabs, in order to make the darker parts flow into those covering the sink surround, almost as if recreating a seamless surface with continuity between the horizontal and vertical planes.

In the master bathroom, the gray shade of Invisible Light prevails, the stone chosen to clad the walls and floor at half height and for the top of the vanity, the base of which is in light walnut-colored ribbed oak with brass details. Both stones installed here feature a Lether finish, which respects and enhances the natural veins to the maximum, even on a tactile level.

Company Profile

Innovation, variety, vision, and quality are four words capable of defining the identity of Antolini, a historic Italian company recognized internationally for the production of natural stone cladding. The statistics confirm the choice and the value of these words. Today, Antolini offers more than 1,300 types of stone, divided into 14 collections, including the exemplary Exclusive Collection, which includes more than 85 exclusive stones. It produces 4,500 square meters of stone cladding per day, reaching one million over the course of a year.

Present in 182 countries, Antolini’s main production centers are in Italy and Brazil. It also has management centers and showrooms distributed around the world, a widespread and virtuous network that is coordinated and managed from the Italian headquarters.

Antolini was founded in Verona by Luigi Antolini in 1956. The company is now led by the next generation, who continue to sustain the values of authenticity, excellence, and Made in Italy with an entrepreneurial spirit constantly engaged in the search for technological progress and evolution in terms of both products and design.

Press Office: Ghénos Communication