In a timeless project, but with many references, natural stone finds unexpected and imaginative applications. Henry Timi recounts with his project the actualization of a very long journey that has to do with the history of man.
Perhaps surprise is the word we expect from every contemporary project. Even if covered by certain modesty, the term that perhaps differs more from axioms and adages of a modern project, surprise indeed, is the missing note, the harmonic reconstructed and undeclared of a perfect chord.
The surprise gratifies us, often remains immediately impressed, and for a long time, in memory, distracts and amuses us, stimulates us in thought and comparison.
And surprise is the keyword that resonates in our head when we enter a beautiful Milanese space, that of Henry Timi in Foro Bonaparte. Surprise yes for the shapes, for the pyrotechnic use, even if very complex and elegant, of the natural stone of Henry Timi, devoted to AG Fronzoni, John Pawson, and Claudio Silvestrin, but radical and Mediterranean in substance.
Already because the bathrooms with split stone with craquelé effect, the ziggurat of unique and unexpected kitchens, and the crack of stone surfaces lightened to cover huge doors are proof of design strength.
Henry Timi designs and invokes the help of designer friends to draw for him (Federico Delrosso). He works the materials with a straightforward metaphorical process that denies the raw material’s heaviness or delicacy and declares it with calm force.
Included in these projects are the pen-pore Travertino Colosseo and the Bianco Canale with “acquafuoco” finish for the kitchens or the “michelangelo” Bianco marble or the “venagrigio” Bianco for the bathrooms, the protagonists of this world able to reexamine the presumed minimalism associated with these masters previously declared.
Henry Timi worked closely with the porphyry of Claudio Silvestrin at the time of Minotti Cucine; he investigated the essential form and nuances of the whites of Pawson and AG Fronzoni.
He managed to realize a language and to do it accurately through matter by utilizing it.
Matter and the ability to process it, often boarding on the limit.
By Giorgio Tartaro
