Focus on Matteo Ghidoni, Salottobuono

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A Room, 2017, Mexico City. Ph. Credits Juan Benavides

With his studio, Salottobuono, Matteo Ghidoni surfs seamlessly between buildings and books, exhibitions and magazines, in which architecture is a malleable material that can be seen from every possible perspective – as told in a quick-fire interview with the architect and editor of the magazine San Rocco.

Matteo Ghidoni portrait — Portrait. Ph. Credits Delfino Sisto Legnani

Name: Matteo Ghidoni / Salottobuono.

Place where you work: Milan.

Your Instagram account: @salottobuono

What’s your studio involved with? Architecture.

Where did you study? At the IUAV in Venice.

Casinò, 2020, Venezia. Ph. Credits Marco Cappelletti

Projects you are currently working on: a park in a small municipality in Emilia, extending a hotel in Veneto and rehabilitating a piece of coastline in Apulia.

The project you dream of carrying out one day: A cemetery.

The project that has influenced you the most: the Cemetery of the 366 Fossae by Ferdinando Fuga, in Naples.

An element that cannot be missing from any of your projects: Precise geometry.

City centre or remote geographies? I love the islands.

doppia 1 — Teatrino, 2018, Milano. Ph. Credits Louis De Belle

Something you have at home designed by you: a table copied from Magistretti, an extremely robust wooden bench, a kitchen trolley and a “flying” bookcase.

What gifts do you like giving? Plants.

If you could build a secret passage in the house, where would it lead? To the past.

What do you usually do on Sundays? I cook.

Your favourite place in Milan: Via Sarpi.

G 01 — Le banquet gaulois, 2016, Kortrijk. Ph. Credits Fabrizio Vatieri

A question from Adam Nathaniel Furman: if you had to give up potatoes or pasta for life, which would it be? I started off generally wondering who could possibly be interested in whether I chose pasta or potatoes, and I was going to ask you to reply to Adam and ask him, then the WhatsApp outage a few days ago cocked up my day and it went out of my mind. Now I think I would say that it would only make sense to answer from a collective point of view, because I don’t think my eating habits are of any interest to anyone, nonetheless I’d have to say that I’d give up pasta because I believe the ecological footprint of the potato to be a good deal smaller, but I would be more honest if I said I could give them both up, as long as you don’t take my cheese away!

Would you also like to ask the next interviewee a question? As Gigi Marzullo would say: Ask yourself a question and answer it yourself.