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Paradiso

Off Club, Rome,

The project for Off Club, now Ottavio-Dahab Restaurant, is a transformative space in Rome. Merging cinematic, ritual and primordial influences, the design reconfigures the interior into dual hospitality zones within a quadrangular enclosure, accented by twin black granite altars and a double grey façade

Genres work
Series grottoes
Themes arches colour fields enclosures forms gold trilithon
Typology bar and restaurant
Intervention types furniture renovation
Stages built
Places rome

Work

Antonino Cardillo

Natural man is not a ‘self’ – he is the mass and a particle in the mass, collective to such a degree that he is not even sure of his own ego. That is why since time immemorial he has needed the transformation mysteries to turn him into ‘something’, and to rescue him from the animal collective psyche, which is nothing but a variété.

— Carl Gustav Jung, Psychologische Typen (1921)

The restaurant and bar Off Club reunites the cinema of Kubrick and De Palma, Grand Theft Auto IV, Miami Art Deco District, the Escher’s perspectives, Byzantine iconostases, and Japanese folding screens.

This work continues the investigation of Primordial Images presenting an ambience that reunites the sensorial plane of tactility with the intuitive, which projects onto reality the psyche of the observer. The space between the elements recalls the pattern of a mandala and the last works of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe – the theme of the double and the one divided.

The two rooms devoted to hospitality form a raumplan six metres in height. Extending right round, a quadrangular enclosure sixteen metres wide unifies the duplex space framing the base of the Vault of the Golden Shadows.

The latter, covering the space within the enclosure, is excavated at the centre by a black apsidal shape. Beneath this centre, a false scale palazzo encloses the contents and functions of the two bars. Constructed of two twin altars 7.22 metres long in black granite, both the bars – mixology on the upper floor and sushi on the lower – counterpoint the opposing sides of the palazzo towards the two rooms.

With its double grey façade the palazzo carries out the apotropaic function of giving faces to the space. An iconostasis made from two twin black monoliths with elongated copper arches masks the face of the palazzo towards the road.

Through the fissure created by the separation of the monoliths a view of figures is revealed. Arches, rhombuses, triangles and discs seem to evoke archaic rituals. Here, ancient and modern syntaxes find conciliation.

Thus, this outline of physical and psychic scapes represents the idea of the architecture as transfiguration of the human.

Paradiso
Upper level: enclosure with two black monoliths screening a trilithon opening and counter
Paradiso
Colour fields: rustic gold of the vault, smooth grey of the façade, glossy black of the opening
Paradiso
Upper level: reverberations of golden light on the steps behind the black granite counter
Paradiso
Black monolith with an elongated copper arch; velvet armchairs and glossy black tables
Paradiso
Lower level: access stair, pulpit-console and archway towards the toilets
Paradiso
Lower level: miniature palazzo with balconies, openings and passages
Paradiso
Lower level: façade of the palazzo beneath the arched silhouette in glossy black
Off Club logotype
Off Club logotype

Well done, it is truly beautiful architecture.

[email], Editor-at-Large of Wallpaper*, London, 27 June 2018 (en, it)

Data

  • Time: Design (Feb – Oct 2017); Construction (Oct 2017 – Jun 2018); Photography (Jun 2018); Text drafting (Sep 2018); Off Club activity (Dec 2018 – Feb 2022); Anima Restaurant and Club activity (Sep 2023 – Oct 2024); Dahab-Ottavio Ristorante activity (Mar 2025 – ongoing)
  • Place: Dahab Ristorante, Via di Casal Bertone, 64, Rome, Italy
  • Area: 450 m² (three storeys)

Credits

  • Architecture, works supervision: Antonino Cardillo
  • Patrons: Massimo Di Persio; with Matteo Di Persio, Francesco Curcio, Remo Curcio
  • Building contractor: Roberto Federici
  • Masonry: Vincenzo Amato, Adrian Ciacan, Marius Ioan Frunzà, Emanuele Venturini
  • Logistics: Cristiano Massariello, Emanuele Zappone
  • Decorating: Andras Marton Mihaly
  • Electrical system: Fabio Gabriele
  • Plumbing system: Stefan Minciuna
  • Granites: Ghirardi Stone Contractor
  • Windows: Claudio Carboni
  • Parquet: Gabriel Grama
  • Ventilation system: Alessio Lanzani
  • Curtains: Pasquale Lo Guercio
  • Mirrors: Nazzareno Garofani
  • Bar counter, tables, furniture design: Antonino Cardillo
  • Armchair design: Piero Lissoni, Living (via Mario Dejana)
  • Chair: Busnelli (via Luca Anzellotti)
  • Door handles: GIL (via Handles)
  • Balcony lamp: Armand Darot
  • Stair lamp: 1970s Murano glass from Palermo
  • Luminator: (via Giuseppe Picconi)
  • Photography, text: Antonino Cardillo
  • Translation: Charles Searson
  • Thanks to Klaus Mondrian

Poetics

2023 – 2019

This lecture traces a decade of research aimed at reintegrating psychology, anthropology, historiography and archaeology into architecture, a discipline fragmented by modern specialisation. Of Paradiso, a cocktail bar and restaurant in Casal Bertone, it says that it condenses a multiplicity of imageries into a single image, like the stage of a psychological theatre. At the centre a sequence of dark and luminous geometries alludes to the symbol of Tanit, the feminine; at the sides two black monoliths, like an iconostasis; on the edges two very elongated arches, the masculine. Gold and glossy black evoke a cosmopolitan sacred, and the work attempts a ‘programmed regression’: the integration of the shadow.

L’antropologia nell’architettura, Museo Agostino Pepoli, Trapani, (en, it)

This lecture explores the genesis of the Off Club [Paradiso] in Rome as a psychological and symbolic space. Drawing on Jungian theory, the talk traces the intuitive function from inner vision to built form, revealing how sacred and erotic archetypes shape architectural language. Themes include the etymology of architectural words, the phenomenology of colour and light, and the role of representation in constructing meaning. The project is framed as a mandala-temple veiled by a screen, where perceptual ambiguity and symbolic resonance invite deeper reflection on the soul of space.

Inside/Out, Royal College of Art, London, (en, it)

This lecture explores architecture as a symbolic and psychological act, where ancient archetypes and cultural opposites converge in spatial form. Paradiso, a Japanese-Italian restaurant and bar in Rome, closes the sequence: the recurring elements of earlier projects combine into a code, gathered in a symbolic space. In accordance with analytical psychology, the work tries to give voice to the ‘shadow’ of the soul: as in an apotropaic magic, representation withdraws energy from the psychic content, against a modern architecture in which evil seems not to exist.

Dessauer Gespräche, Dessau Institute of Architecture, Dessau, (en, it)

Historiography

2025 – 2018

An impression of stage-like quality is created, and a reference to spirituality (psyche), to which the architect himself refers, in a rich, intellectually sophisticated way.

Architekturführer Rom, Edition Axel Menges, Stuttgart/London, 15 Feb. 2025, p. 368 (de, en, it)

If kitsch was initially depicted as a room within which one could find all the experiences of an individual, […] in this case, the accumulation becomes exclusively sensorial.

Viceversa, Dec. 2023 (en, it)

These hieratic forms create an atmosphere of slightly menacing mystery – one could expect a Mithraic rite to begin at any moment.

The Architectural Review, no. 1470, London, 13 April 2020, p. 44 (en, it)

Inspired by Swiss Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, he is constantly reaching out for the ‘architecture of the unconscious’.

re-thinkingthefuture.com, New Delhi, 10 August 2019 (en, it)

This is a strong reference to the archetype, one which is considered as the need to return to the origin of things.

Abitare la terra, no. 49, dir. Paolo Portoghesi, Rome, June 2019, p. 38 (en, it)

The Sicilian architect Antonino Cardillo just unveiled his latest masterpiece, the Off Club in Rome.

sightunseen.com, New York, 22 September 2018 (en, it)

A dark paradise of shadows, mirrors and symmetries.

DEAR Magazin, no. 4/18, Berlin, December 2018, p. 34 (de, en, it)

A long-time Wallpaper* collaborator, Antonino Cardillo’s latest work marks a defining moment for the Sicilian architect.

wallpaper.com, London, 17 September 2018 (en, it)

Exhibitions

2025 – 2019

C. G. Jung-Institut Zürich

As part of the seminar ‘Depth architecture – The aesthetic nature of the psyche’ at the C. G. Jung-Institut Zürich, a sequence of sixteen images conceived as imaginal chambers was presented as a silent and solitary exhibition, anticipating the seminar’s themes and the idea of ‘form as the task of the Spirit’. Of Paradiso the sequence included three images.

Küsnacht, (de, en, it)

Dipartimento di Architettura, Università di Palermo

At the invitation of Professor Antonio Biancucci, with Salvatore Oddo, Antonino Cardillo presented his works in the lecture ‘Style, form, proportion, position’, in the La giovane architettura 4 conferences series at the Dipartimento di Architettura of the Università di Palermo. Paradiso illustrated the section ‘Form’.

Palermo, (en, it)

Open House Roma

At the invitation of curator Gaia Maria Lombardo, Andrea Paolo Massara guided the visitors through the Paradiso project of Cardillo, part of the Open House Roma 2024 program.

Anima Restaurant and Club, Rome, – (en, it)

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. Paradiso appeared under the title ‘Off Club’.

Trapani, (en, it)

Dessau Institute of Architecture

After an introduction by Professor Johannes Kister, Cardillo interpreted seven images of his architectural works during the lecture ‘A synchronicity of cultures and civilisations’, part of the Dessauer Gespräche series at the Dessau Institute of Architecture, Bauhaus Campus. Paradiso illustrated the section ‘The symbols of transformation’.

Bauhaus Campus, Dessau, (de, en, it)

Royal College of Art, Interior Design Department

At the invitation of the students of the Royal College of Art, Cardillo discussed his nightclub project during the lecture ‘The making of Rome’s Off Club’ in the Inside/Out conference series curated by representatives Yara Boulos and Riccardo Rizzetto of the Interior Design department.

Royal College of Art, London, (en, it)

Publications

2025 – 2016

Theoretical writings

  • , ‘Depth architecture – The aesthetic nature of the psyche’, seminar as part of the Training Programmes in Analytical Psychology, C. G. Jung-Institut Zürich, Küsnacht, 31 Oct. 2025; transcript published on , 31 Oct. 2025.
  • , ‘Un percorso d’integrazione’, lecture as part of the encounter , part of the series of cultural events of the Museo Agostino Pepoli, Trapani, 26 May 2023; transcript published on , 20 Sept. 2025.
  • , ‘A synchronicity of cultures and civilisations’, lecture as part of the Dessauer Gespräche cur. Johannes Kister, Hochschule Anhalt, Dessau Institute of Architecture, 13 Nov. 2019; transcript published on , 15 April 2023.
  • , ‘The making of Rome’s Off Club’, lecture as part of the Inside/Out, ed. Yara Boulos, Riccardo Rizzetto, Royal College of Art, London, 22 Jan. 2019; transcript published on , 7 Nov. 2023.
  • , ‘’, Royal College of Art, London, 21 Jan. 2019.
  • , ‘’, ODDA, no. 11, interviewed by Zurain Imam, New York, Sept. 2016, pp. 426‑427.

Bibliography

2025 – 2018

Reception in press and internet

Reception in social media