Take a Rare Look Inside an Ahead-of-Its-Time Home by Italian Architect Umberto Riva
"Umberto’s attention was unfaltering; for him, there were no minor details," writes Maria Bottero of the apartment where, at 93, she has lived since she was 37 years old. She’s referring to her former husband, Umberto Riva, the Italian architect and painter with a cult following, whose work softened the hard edges of brutalism with expressive angles and unexpected materials. Her Milan apartment and the building that houses it are often referred to as the first major works by the architect, who died in 2021; they show the influence of his onetime professor Carlo Scarpa, though rendered in rough-and-ready materials rather than fine marble. Riva left the concrete structure of the eighth-floor flat raw and then added geometric cutaways; angular wooden furnishings; and soft, spare colors. At roughly 1,000 square feet, it feels like a single room flowing around a series of free-floating walls. For her part, Maria has spent the last 56 years filling her home with art, books, and other trappings of her life as a designer, editor, and professor, turning Riva’s work into a space all her own.
Maria Bottero taught for decades at Politecnico di Milano and for a period served as editor-in-chief of the influential architecture magazine Zodiac. (The publication ran from 1957 to 1973 and is now a major vintage score.) Her apartment is filled with the design flourishes of her former husband, architect Umberto Riva, and her own collections of objects.
In 2023, photographers Allegra Martin and Francesco Paleari documented her life in the apartment for a book published last year by Spazio, the first time the space has been photographed since a 1969 shoot. The result is a slender, meticulously printed volume, one that shows the inventiveness of the architecture and, more important, evokes Maria’s life there over decades.
"This living room, with its tapered shape, is a bit expressionist," Maria writes in a new book about the apartment. "It’s clear to me that Umberto’s first rule was to breach the rigidity of right angles."
Much of the original furniture remains in the home, including wooden bookshelves set into concrete room dividers. "I find the way he resolved the corners with obtuse angles quite beautiful," writes Maria. "He used the same detail for both the table and the bookcase." The photographers were drawn to the materials in addition to the form of the furnishings. "I love all the materials inside the house, especially those that were used by Riva to create the furniture," says Francesco Paleari, who with Allegra Martin shot the apartment for the first time in decades for the book.
The radiant floors are made from black gneiss. Maria writes that Riva chose it because it was inexpensive and, perhaps, the color reminded him of Le Corbusier. "I find that the apartment is a black sea because you have this floor, and it seems very fluid," says Martin. "It’s a fluid floor that changes with the light."
Maria sits at her desk, surrounded by ephemera from her editorial and academic career. She has filled the apartment with Riva’s lighting and paintings, in addition to papers and artwork related to her publishing career, which allowed the photographers to capture accumulated layers of her life. "Our two practices are quite similar," says Paleari. "We like to leave hints inside a picture, some things that perhaps the reader can see only in a second look, and so every time suggests a new understanding of the space."
"When you are photographing architecture, you need to know the theory and the history very well. But at the same time, I like to feel free to picture whatever I notice and whatever seems very important in a space, not only the design pieces," Martin says. She and Paleari shot the space as they found it, including taking portraits of Maria. "She’s sweet, but very tough," Martin says of her subject.
Bands of windows and a curved skylight, along with porthole-like openings punched into the concrete walls, allow more natural light into the home.
The photographers also shot the 93-year-old’s assistant, Alisson Vega Avalos.
The black-and white plaster ceilings with alternating shiny and matte finishes pick up the natural light coming in from all directions.
"This house is full of reflections, and I often have to look twice to understand what’s in front of me."
–Maria Bottero, resident
"For Umberto, there was never enough light," writes Maria. "The southwest-facing wall is the perfect example. He first pierced it with a large bay window in the middle. Then he added two ‘portholes,’ but it wasn’t enough." She continues: "He also cut the vertical surface further up so that the ceiling does not rest on a wall but a dematerialized surface. The light reverberates on the varnished ceilings from that strip of windows."
"The home is a mix of the architecture, the project of Riva, and the life of Maria," says Martin. "He used this space to experiment," Maria concurs. "This house is not very perfect."
"Umberto was a rationalist in his own way: outside the box," Maria writes. "Like Le Corbusier, he would then let off steam with colors. One wonders, why a skylight at the entrance when there is a bay window right in the middle of the living room that provides all of the light that you could possibly need? To him, it’s yet another ploy to show the importance of light in activating
surfaces and colors."
Asked if he has a favorite aspect of the space, Paleari doesn’t hesitate. "For me, for sure, it’s the light."
Project Credits:
Photography: Allegra Martin / @allegramartin and Francesco Paleari / @francescopaleari
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