TRAVEL THROUGH TIME

The design of this Milanese apartment celebrates its features from the past while adding in modern pieces - it's a classic look that's future-proof

- Sara Dal Zotto/Kara O'Reilly

in the elegant residential neighbourhood around Milan's Via XX Settembre, Tessa Horovitz, a Parisian architect, has been working on her most important project - the house she shares with her husband Alvise Raccanelli, astrophysicist and professor at the University of Padua. 'We immediately fell in love with the area,' she says. "Coming from Paris and having grown up among ancient and sumptuous buildings, for my first experience of living in Italy I wanted a place that truly represented its aesthetics and beauty.'

In designing her house, Tessa faced the challenge of how to make a place like this something different without distorting it,' she says. 'Since everything was well preserved, I have enhanced the historical features, such as the original windows.

We kept the original layout and worked above all on the finishes, the colours and restoring the beauty of the ancient elements that needed care.' For her, the most important aspect was preserving and enhancing the grandiose ceiling height - one of the luxuries in architecture and real estate, and one of the hardest things to find in today's modern homes.'