Dream Home: Franco Ceccarelli's Milanese Palace

I'm holed up for the holidays in my parents' lovely flat in Florence, enjoying a welcome break from the stresses of New York. While I have been here I have been spending my time doing nothing, which has been wonderful. To celebrate my time here I thought I would share this gorgeous image from the 1970s apartment of an Italian popstar.

In an example of radical chic, young pop singer Franco Ceccarelli of Equipe 84 effects a new twist on the bath-in-the-kitchen cold-water flat. His is in an 18th-century palace in Milan. The grandeur of the architecture didn't include the amenities of a bath, so Ceccarelli installed one beneath the palatial window in his kitchen-dining room. It is left uncovered and artfully obvious. Such disdain for conventions is delightfully incongruous with the Italianate dining table and chairs and the elegant brass serving tray in one corner.

Text by Norma Skurka with photographs by Oberto Gil for Underground Interiors, 1972.



Equipe 84 were the most famous Italian beat group from the 60's, and they continued until 1974 though Ceccarelli left in 1970. Ceccarelli then went off on the "hippie trail" to Kabul before opening a store in Modena (I believe). He restarted the band in the mid-80s with some of the original members. They still perform together, and he also writes music for theater, film and television. Franco Ceccarelli wrote a book on the history of Equipe 84, Lo ho in mente te. Storia dell'Equipe 84, which was published in 1996.