We are convinced that design can produce change in the world. The Appartamento Lago project emerged with just this intent: improve people’s lives and work, develop connections, let design be seen in a real house, so that it can be tried out, touched and experienced.
To bring this idea to life, during the 2009 Salone del Mobile in Milan we opened the first Appartamento, in a house in Via Tortona. We furnished it with Lago furnishings and then we moved in, welcoming visitors as guests. Those who stopped by the Appartamento found a chef preparing meals, tidbits and snacks, but also
he company staff in at-home mode. In the brief period during which it was open, Appartamento Lago Tortona welcomed more than 10,000 visitors.
Out of that project came many relationships and, above all, the desire to expand the project in order to create a network of Appartamentos that could produce culture and present a wide range of life contexts and ways of living.
People responded enthusiastically to this idea and thus were born Appartamentos in Venice, Bologna, Riccione, Turin, Bergamo, San Vito dei Normanni in Apulia and Alicante in Spain. All inhabited by people who open the doors of their own homes to the outside world and organise events, promote those doing innovative work in their cities and create moments for encounter.
Those who enter an Appartamento Lago find a different atmosphere in each one, which speaks of the passions and personalities of those who live there. There is the Appartamento Milano Brera, our general social quarter where you can ring the bell at (almost) any time, and come up and see our products, participate in a workshop, attend a talk and meet interesting people. And then there is the Appartamento Lago Bergamo, a little jewel in the old part of town, with old wooden beams, and the Appartamento Lago Alto Salento, with the white, sun-drenched architecture of Southern Italy, and the Appartamento Lago Torino Venaria, which is an architecture studio and former bicycle shop, in a building that dates to 1770.
If you are passing by an Appartamento Lago, don’t hesitate to ring the bell; you will always find a warm welcome, encounter truly stimulating people and situations, and at worst enjoy a coffee!
