Antonio Citterio, of ACPV Architects: “I need to have a kind of ‘ping pong’ of ideas with others.”

Antonio Citterio may never have become an architect if not for his mother. “It’s a funny story. My mother was the one who signed me up for architecture at the university, because, actually, at that time, I would have wanted to continue working. I am grateful to my mom for this.” 

She must have seen in him a great gift, for Citterio became one of the most important and prolific architects and designers today. The Italian is the chairman and co-founder of ACPV ARCHITECTS, Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel, known for works like Bvlgari Hotels and buildings of multifarious typologies across the globe.

It is not an understatement that his design language, combining comfort, intelligence and refinement, has contributed to defining the homes and interiors of this milieu. Citterio is also a prominent furniture and industrial designer, with clients like Maxalto, B&B Italia, Cassina, Hermes, Knoll, Flos, and Vitra.

These were designed under his eponymous firm, Antonio Citterio Design, independent of ACPV ARCHITECTS. 

Simple beginnings

The glamorous spaces where many of these icons are found are a stark contrast to Citterio’s beginnings in Meda. 

“My childhood memories are about the countryside. I was born in 1950, just 25km outside of Milan. I remember the small hills around Meda and the fact that many people from Milan moved to Meda during the summer because the weather was cooler. I remember the 50s, when agriculture was around, and in the 60s, there was industrialisation, which changed the city’s character,” shares Citterio. This was important to his oeuvre, as furniture brands and factories started to combine craft and machinery, so he designed with this in mind.

Even before graduating from the famous Politecnico di Milano in 1975, where he studied architecture, Citterio dabbled in creative work, influenced by his father, who designed and produced furniture. When he was 13, he entered art school. 

In the mid-1980s, two important young students came to work for Citterio. One of them, Terry Dwan, became his wife. The other, Patricia Viel, joined in 1986 and became his business partner. 

“They were lucky years,” states Citterio on the forging of these fortitudinous partnerships. When working with Viel, he describes a complementary relationship. 

“It’s not always easy, even if we have worked together for around 40 years. This is because we don’t always think about things in the same way; in fact, we often think in radically different ways. But these different visions, together in dialogue, benefit our work.” 

Vision for the future

Collaboration is vital to his design ethos, regardless of whether he is designing a skyscraper or an object, says the architect. “My method is, in fact, about needing to work with other people. I need to have a kind of ‘ping pong’ of ideas with others.” This generosity is unlike the image of a “starchitect” — but of course, the humble architect does not see himself as one.  

I ask him what he thinks are the challenges of designing in the current times. “Sustainability,” he replies. “In design, it is more and more important to think about the end of life of a product — what happens when it’s no longer used? How can I recycle it? How can I disassemble it? And in a certain way, this is becoming the thinking also in architecture. We are designing buildings by thinking about how, maybe in 30 years, (we might be able to) change their external skins because the skins may become increasingly more efficient over the years.” 

Citterio contemplates that a building’s facade may produce the energy needs for the building by then. Functions will also become more fluid. Already, we are witnessing such practices.

“Offices might become homes, or a home might become offices. An exception to this is perhaps a museum, which would most likely stay a museum,” he considers. “That would be a very interesting typology to work on.” 

The name in hotel design

One typology he is a virtuoso in is hotels. “Hotel design has been one of our main works. We started in 2000 when Bvlgari, a family of jewellers who wanted to enter the hôtellerie sector, asked for a study for a new typology of hotel — a ‘grand’ yet contemporary hotel. We worked for almost a year on a model room with a corridor while they did extensive market research to understand guests from all over the world,” shares Citterio, whose firm is based in Milan, where the first Bvlgari Hotel opened in 2004. 

Hotels and housing manifold functions are complex to design. They require both architecture and interior design expertise. “You need to understand what it means to design a private space where people want to feel at home, and what it means to design a public space where people wish to be seen. With Bvlgari, we built not so much on the idea of luxury, but rather, on how guests would perceive quality,” Citterio expounds. 

A prominent project opening soon is The Sky Taipei, housing Park Hyatt Taipei and Andaz Taipei, among other lifestyle-centric facilities. The project resulted from winning an architectural competition — “a very prominent one where a series of leading international architecture practices participated,” he says with pride. In Taiwan, ACPV ARCHITECTS is also designing Capella Kenting.

Citterio enjoys working in the country. “In Taiwan, our very first project was in Taichung. And what really left an impression was the country itself, the intelligence and the quality of the built environment. Our experience working in Taiwan has also been characterised by great people who are very professional and available to collaborate. For an architect, this is extraordinary,” he testifies.

He highlights that the right client is paramount to each project’s success, equating the architect to the “father” in a project and the client to the “mother.”

Citterio elaborates, reiterating the importance of collaboration: “Just like in life, there will be a certain alchemy between these two components. Because of this, the client and the architect are the forces behind creating something new.”