The first comprehensive monograph on the Italian architect showcases the dazzling diversity of her designs—from punk to postmodernism—with impressive photographs and drawings.
Sandra Hofmeister
Nanda Vigo. Interiors. The Metaphysics of Everyday Life. Nanda Vigo Interni. La metafisica del quotidiano, Silvia Groaz (ed.), Englisch, Italienisch, hardcover, 496 pages, Birkhäuser, Basel 2026 → order now
There is a photo of Nanda Vigo from the early 1960s. In it, she is standing at a party in Rome wearing a glittering dress with three vertical slits down the front. The artist Lucio Fontana designed it. Nanda Vigo wears it with a smile, her eyes lined with long eyeliner, her blonde hair teased. The Milanese architect was part of the avant-garde movement that moved beyond Rationalism and organized itself into groups such as Superstudio and the German art collective Zero, of which Nanda Vigo was a member for a time.
“She-ra move on..Domestic ritual”, stand for the event Abitare il tempo – Giornate internazionali dell’arredo classico, Verona, 1989 © Comune di Milano, CASVA – Archivio Nanda Vigo
Milan in the Postwar Period
The English and Italian volume Nanda Vigo Interiors. Nanda Vigo Interni, edited by Silvia Groaz, explores Nanda Vigo’s creative context with great care: the interior designs of Joe Colombo and Gio Ponti, Ettore Sottsass, and classic furniture designs serve as the backdrop against which the architect’s work is presented. A roller-coaster ride from the Space Age through Minimalism to Postmodernism.
Casa Viola, Casa Nera
There isn’t much literature on Nanda Vigo—which makes this comprehensive, nearly 500-page, bilingual monograph all the more important. Richly illustrated with sketches, photos, and portraits of the designer, it features, in addition to the text, large-format photos depicting psychedelic, darkly iridescent interiors, precise drawings, and letters. Color has played a prominent role in Nanda Vigo’s work—in the Casa Viola, Enrico Castellani’s art shines out from the lilac-colored walls. The Casa Nera—the Black House—turns out to be a sort of hall of mirrors with a backlit floor.
“A beatle under the leaf”, private house for Giobatta Meneguzzo, with Gio Ponti (structure), Malo, Vicenza, 1964-1969 © photo: Adam Štech, 2017
Catalog of Works
Like most interior designs, many of Nanda Vigo’s interiors did not last long. This makes the catalog of her work, which documents the designs with photographs, all the more valuable. Vigo’s design language—bold colors and reflective surfaces—has been translated into the book’s design by Berlin-based graphic designer Floyd E. Schulze. Thin, high-gloss paper, a silver endpaper, and a bright pink glossy cover for the large book block.
Creative Talent and Surprises
Nanda Vigo’s perspective drawings—small studies of interiors that serve as models for color schemes and decorative elements—are among the most delightful discoveries in this book, which is full of surprises. Accompanying them are Vigo’s texts—short poems that capture personal impressions and sketchily explain her designs.
Apartment for Riccardo Princivalle, Verona, 1985 © Comune di Milano, CASVA – Archivio Nanda Vigo
Postmodernism
In the 1980s, Vigo developed a design language that, like the apartment she designed for Riccardo Princivalle, transports us into the postmodern world—a world that plays with references to the past with great irony. Golden bathroom fixtures, delicate metal embellishments on furniture and cabinets… dazzling arcades in the living room. Vigo didn’t just design individual rooms; she transformed the entire apartment into a postmodern sequence of spaces that feels like a movie set.
“Checkerboard House – Blue habitat II”, apartment at Politecnico for Ezio Minoli, with Franco Fiorio, Milan, 1968 © photo: Carla de Benedetti, 1970
Mirrors, Metals, Neon
Light and metals, iridescent reflective surfaces, and neon were Nanda Vigo’s design materials. This monograph fills a gap in design history, which has all too often focused on male colleagues such as Ettore Sottsass while neglecting female protagonists. Nanda Vigo passed away in 2020 at the age of 83—it is time for this dazzling designer to be recognized internationally, and this monograph is an important first step.
