SALON: Why did you choose minimalism?

 - I love simplicity. Powerful energy lurks in its perfect form. Look at our body. Outside, we are simple and open to the eye, but inside each has its own complex and intricate content. For me, balance is important in everything. The material always confronts the spiritual. My ideal of beauty is beyond time. Remember the craftsmen. They decorated the roofs of the cathedrals with beautiful statues that only God saw. I believe that thanks to minimalism, you can create pacifying things that help people take a break from the aggression and confusion of everyday life.

S: One of your last works is the design of the Le Notti and Le Pause collections for the company. MOBILEFFE. Le Notti ("Nights") is a bedroom furniture. Why a bedroom?

 - I consider the bedroom the only place in the house where the feelings of partners interpenetrate and fluctuate between ice and flame, intelligence and subconsciousness, sleep and reality. The energy center of the bedroom becomes the bed. To enhance the importance of the bed, I separated it from the wall, lifted it above the floor and surrounded it with space, placing it closer to the center of the room.

S: Light plays a crucial role in all your projects. Objects as if floating in the air.

 - to create an abstract sense of reality, for which light and shadow are very important. However, only the light itself should be visible, not its source. Therefore, I try to hide the lighting equipment. Often frosted glass helps me in this. It easily transmits the rays of light and at the same time hides from prying eyes all that is superfluous. So it was with the Le Notti bed, made for Mobileffe: The illuminated headboard is the main and sufficient light source in the bedroom. As a result, the interior is rid of the lamp as if it were an extra piece, and the light became an element of architecture. This is the novelty.

S: Which of your works are you really proud of?

 - This is the same Po stone bath from the I Fiumi collection for BOFFI. Maybe because she is far ahead of all her followers, if not tougher - the imitators, those who copied her. From my point of view, she gave a start to the whole direction of modern bathrooms.

S: Lord SilvestrinWhat, in your opinion, is primary - design or functionality?

 - The function in no case comes first! It is always secondary. The primary design is the same. Functionality should be, but this is the next step. Otherwise, we will have to recognize the primacy of engineering and technology. Where then is architecture, where is art?

S: Can we say that the furniture you have designed is mini-architectural structures? And then what, in your opinion, is the essence of design?

 - Somehow I made chairs for POLTRONA WOMAN. Now they are told that the chairs look like buildings. In fact, there is nothing outside architecture. The architect is the designer. I believe that the basis of design is in the expression of one’s own thought: to make non-existent existing. First, a certain idea (something intangible, not existing yet) appears. And then I make her incarnate. Therefore, it turns out that many things I created are ahead of their time. This defies explanation. Most likely, this is just a gift. What is revealed. Something that is not at the mercy of man. Therefore, I use the word "nature". I do not like jewelry. I prefer the "frank" objects, filled with power, but not without poetry. So I understand the real elegance.

S: Do you have a dream?

 - Yes. Build a cathedral. The simplest form and therefore beautiful.