Images
Akin to a Cinema Set
Sergio Rossi, Milan, – May 2013
Akin to a Cinema Set is the project for the Sergio Rossi store in Brera, Milan. It examines cinematic allegory to blur the boundary between simulation and reality. By attracting historical references and dialogues between internal and external elements of the city, it evokes a dynamic spatial transformation
Work
Antonino Cardillo
The separation from the pre-existing building, made evident by the gap inserted between the old and new masonry, almost takes on the tone of a ‘scientific restoration’ technique.
— Paolo Portoghesi, Il Tempio Malatestiano (1965)
Often cinema and architecture find a common denominator in allegory, as an abstract concept is expressed through an image. In the David Lynch film Inland Empire, Nikki, the protagonist, superimposes her own identity onto the role of the actress that she plays in the story. The narrative structures of the two lives blur. The more it goes on, the more difficult it becomes to discern where Nikki’s life finishes and Sue’s (the part played) begins. Simulation and reality overlap. And this act throws open perspectives to the perception at first concealed, which come to mutate the meanings of each of the two lives.
The temporal production presented here attempts a transliteration of this structural idea in Lynch’s film: architecture for Sergio Rossi creates a game of returns between orders of ideal and reality, between interiors and exteriors. Exchanging dialogue, this architecture overlaps the diverse identities of the place: from the outline of the pre-existing 1980s shop, to the urban backdrop of the medieval Church of the Carmine, to the decorative Art Nouveau pieces of the palazzo in the alley nearby.
So relationships, as well as happening in space, extend also into time, into dialogue, which is also critical interpretation, with signs already in existence. The idea of the insertion of a building into another, is above all a recurring theme in the architecture of the past. From the medieval schola cantorum of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome, to Leon Battista Alberti, who, in the Tempietto in Florence, simulates a miniature of the Sacred Sepulchre in Jerusalem inside a large room, to the Baroque experiences of the chamber of light and of the theatrical stage set, up to the neoclassical canopies of John Soane which, inspired by the unfinishedness of the Roman ruins, seem to fluctuate in a space made of light.
Suggested by the ephemeral canvases of scenography, this system of construction is set out again here according to an Italian metre mutated from the Milanese rationalism of the [twentieth] century. But the rational nature of this enclosure, structurally independent of the existing space, is put into doubt by the contradictions that are determined among the diverse identities of the space: that of the installation and the other, residual and amorphous, that of the existing space made homogeneous by a grey-blue colour, and the urban landscape of Brera, time beaten by the episodic passage of the tramways.
Thus the internal space is presented to the observer according to a progressive unveiling of different and partially hidden ambits, which suggests an alternative way to the conventional interior open-space which, as it often offers itself to view from the start, inhibits the imagination.
L’Arca, no. 264, Milan, Dec. 2010, p. 92
Testimony
Tony Chambers
Cardillo is one of the most significant architects of our time. Combine that talent with Russo’s modern take on classic footwear and you get an exceptional shopping destination experience. This is an exciting and significant collaboration for Wallpaper* and this is a must-see store.
Men’s Footwear World Tour [media release], Sergio Rossi‑Wallpaper*, Milan, 19 March 2010 (en, it)
Data
- Time: Design (Feb – Mar 2010); Construction (Mar – Apr 2010); Photography (Apr 2010 & Feb 2011); Text drafting (May 2010); Demolished (May 2013)
- Place: Sergio Rossi, Via Ponte Vetero, 19, Brera, Milan, Italy
- Area: 60 m² (two storeys)
Credits
- Architecture, works supervision: Antonino Cardillo
- Contracts: Miriam Romano
- Clients: Sergio Rossi (director: Christophe Melard; art director: Francesco Russo; marketing: Xavier Rougeaux), Wallpaper* (Editor-in-Chief: Tony Chambers; Editor-at-Large: Suzanne Trocmé)
- General contractor: Buzzoni
- Furniture, lamps design: Antonino Cardillo
- Floor lamp: Joe Colombo, Oluce
- Photography, text: Antonino Cardillo
- Translation: Charles Searson
- Thanks to Suzanne Trocmé
Poetics
2023
An integrative journey
This lecture traces a decade of research aimed at reintegrating psychology, anthropology, historiography and archaeology into architecture, a discipline fragmented by modern specialisation. It presents Akin to a Cinema Set, the Sergio Rossi shop in Milan, as the first project in which multidisciplinary integration begins to take shape: a wooden scaffold conceived as an inverted film set, a timber ‘box’ that acts as a theatrical backdrop, almost a temenos. The city enters in fragments, beyond the surfaces of the building painted dark, and the space becomes a layered memory of Milan.
L’antropologia nell’architettura, Museo Agostino Pepoli, Trapani, (en, it)
Historiography
2019 – 2010
Architecture of the unconscious
Akshaya Muralikumar
Visual potpourri isn’t always well contemplated. But when a buffer is introduced into the translation of the visuals, keeping the user conscious of the superimposition, harmony strives.
re-thinkingthefuture.com, New Delhi, 10 August 2019 (en, it)
A building into another
Yoeri Khyrian Jonker
This duality is the key inspiration to the design of this store. As with the lead in the movie, the store shows a confusing blend that Cardillo so rightfully describes as the insertion of a building into another.
thelavishworld.com, Antwerpen, 11 December 2013 (en, it)
From boutique to gallery
Mitchell Oakley Smith, Alison Kubler
A marriage of the sacred and profane, the design was intended both to augment and disrupt the reverence with which fashion products are presented and viewed in shops.
Art / Fashion in the 21st Century, Thames & Hudson, London, 8 October 2013, pp. 252, 254‑257 (en, it)
Experiments
Massimo Locci
In the realization phase, a process of sign distillation and method systematization occurs, making the language clearer and stronger.
L’architetto italiano, no. 42, Rome, April 2011, p. 31 (en, it)
An ephemeral boutique
Malaika Byng
Wallpaper* and luxury footwear brand Sergio Rossi stepped up the fashion game during the Salone del Mobile by launching an ephemeral men’s shoe boutique in Milan, designed by acclaimed Sicilian architect Antonino Cardillo.
wallpaper.com, London, 19 April 2010 (en, it)
Fashion falls for design
Frédéric Martin-Bernard
If the fashion for ephemeral boutiques can leave one perplexed, the Sergio Rossi pop‑up store (via Ponte Vetero, 19), on the fringes of the Salone del Mobile, aims to showcase new local talents in design.
Le Figaro, Paris, 17 April 2010 (en, fr, it)
Exhibitions
2023 – 2010
L’antropologia nell’architettura
Museo Agostino Pepoli
Following an introduction by anthropologist Rita Cedrini, Antonino Cardillo presented his built works in the lecture ‘An integrative journey’, part of the encounter L’antropologia nell’architettura at the Museo Agostino Pepoli in Trapani. Akin to a Cinema Set appeared under the title ‘Sergio Rossi Store’.
Trapani, (en, it)
Spaces & Narrations
Chelsea College of Art and Design
At the invitation of Professor Ana Araujo, Cardillo recounted his computer-generated images in the ‘Light and rendering’ lecture part of the Spaces & Narrations lecture series at Chelsea College of Art and Design. Akin to a Cinema Set appeared in the video of images that accompanied the lecture.
London, (en, it)
Publications
2023 – 2010
Work texts
- Antonino Cardillo, ‘Sergio Rossi store’, Commercial Display, 大连理工大学, Dalian, Aug. 2012, pp. 136‑143.
- Antonino Cardillo, ‘An ephemeral shop akin to a cinematographic set’, Creative Commercial Space, ed. Aimee Wu, Anna Qu, Phoenix, Hong Kong, June 2012, pp. 234‑237.
- Antonino Cardillo, ‘Gioco di rimandi: shop in Milan’, L’Arca, no. 264, dir. Cesare Maria Casati, Milan, Dec. 2010, pp. 92‑93.
- Antonino Cardillo, ‘Akin to a Cinema Set’, worldarchitecturenews.com, ed. Samy Mansour, London, 14 Sept. 2010.
- Antonino Cardillo, Antonino Cardillo architect, ed. Angel Fanghsien Lin, Rome, Sept. 2010; rev. eds, May 2011, July 2011. Printed in c. 20 copies; web eds, Nov. 2011, Dec. 2014.
Theoretical writings
- Antonino Cardillo, ‘Un percorso d’integrazione’, lecture as part of the encounter L’antropologia nell’architettura, part of the series of cultural events of the Museo Agostino Pepoli, Trapani, 26 May 2023; transcript published on antoninocardillo.com, 20 Sept. 2025.
Bibliography
2019 – 2010
Reception in press and internet
- Akshaya Muralikumar, ‘10 projects of Antonino Cardillo every architect must visit!’, re-thinkingthefuture.com, New Delhi, 10 Aug. 2019.
- Teresa Morales-García, ‘Antonino Cardillo: ver, tocar y sentir’, Solange, no. 5, ed. Manuel Rodríguez, Rome, Sept. 2017, pp. 15‑18.
- Yoeri Khyrian Jonker, ‘Lavish stores: Sergio Rossi by Antonino Cardillo’, thelavishworld.com, Antwerpen, 11 Dec. 2013.
- Mitchell Oakley Smith, Alison Kubler, ‘From boutique to gallery: fashion, art and architecture’, Art / Fashion in the 21st Century, Thames & Hudson, London, 8 Oct. 2013, pp. 252, 254‑257.
- Mitchell Oakley Smith, ‘House of Dust’, mroakleysmith.com, Sydney, 16 Aug. 2013.
- Helen Geng Haizhen, ‘对抗之美——印象派建筑师’, Interior Architecture of China, no. 107, Beijing, Nov. 2011, pp. 30‑69.
- Anonymous, ‘Frame story’, Design Today, vol. X, no. 9, ed. Mamta Upadhyaya, New Delhi, June 2011, pp. 44‑48.
- Massimo Locci, ‘Sperimentazioni di Antonino Cardillo’, L’architetto italiano, no. 42, Rome, April 2011, pp. 30‑33.
- Teresa Morales-García, ‘Entrevista: Antonino Cardillo. Arquitecto. La promesa consolidada’, freelanceviajera.blogspot.com, Ávila, Jan. 2011.
- Anonymous, ‘Negozio temporaneo Sergio Rossi progettato da Antonino Cardillo’, AN, no. 100, Varese, Nov. 2010, pp. 74‑75.
- Lucie Červená, ‘Stejnost a jinakost podle Antonina Cardilla’, Projekt, no. 9/10, Prague, Sept. 2010, pp. 28‑37.
- Anonymous, ‘Men’s Footwear World Tour by Sergio Rossi’ [video], Fashion TV, Milan, 12 Aug. 2010.
- Anonymous, ‘Semejante a un set cinematográfico’, A+A, no. 14, Mexico City, June 2010, p. 41.
- Dan Logan (dir., ed.), ‘Wallpaper*/Sergio Rossi collaboration’ [video], interviewed by Ellie Stathaki, Logan Productions, wallpaper.com, London, 24 May 2010.
- Anonymous, ‘A Milano è di scena l’uomo Sergio Rossi’, Pambianco Week, no. 9/VI, Milan, 6 May 2010, p. 14.
- Julie Mangaud, ‘Sergio Rossi débute son Men’s Footwear Tour’, fashionmag.com, Paris, 22 April 2010; ‘Sergio Rossi debutta col suo Men’s Footwear Tour’, Milan, 26 April 2010; tr. Gianluca Bolelli.
- Monica Codegoni Bessi, ‘Salone del Mobile 2010 – Un nuovo concept per il primo temporary store uomo di Sergio Rossi’, modaonlive.wordpress.com, Milan, 22 April 2010.
- Malaika Byng, ‘Wallpaper* and Sergio Rossi unveil an ephemeral boutique in Milan’, wallpaper.com, London, 19 April 2010.
- Frédéric Martin-Bernard, ‘La mode se pique de design’, Le Figaro Magazine, Le Figaro, Paris, 17 April 2010; lefigaro.fr, 17 April 2010.
- Matteo Persivale, ‘La moda suona il rock (di saturnino)’, Corriere della Sera, Milan, 15 April 2010, pp. 40‑41.
- Chiara Bottoni, ‘Sergio Rossi, via al progetto pop-up’, MFF, no. 070, Milan, 13 April 2010, p. 7.
- Anonymous, ‘Sergio Rossi e Wallpaper* collaborano per il debutto del “Men’s Footwear World Tour”’, sfilate.it, Milan, 2 April 2010.
- Sergio Rossi, Men’s Footwear World Tour [media release], Sergio Rossi‑Wallpaper*, Milan, 19 March 2010, p. 1.
Reception in social media
- Wallpaper* (@wallpapermag), ‘Another reason to go to Milan: To visit the Sergio Rossi store designed by Antonino Cardillo’, Twitter, .