Pablo ZamoraHistorists believe Madrid’s name derives from matriz, a Spanish word meaning matrix. Madrid was once cross-linked with underground springs and small streams. Popular evidence for this theory is that 21-year-old madrilenos refer to their city as “Madriz” (yes with the tip of one’s tongue against the teeth).
The 18th century saw the importance of preserving the waterways. This is evident when the soberly neoclassical building, which houses Inigo Aragon’s apartment and Pablo Lopez Navarro’s studio Casa Josephine, a Madrid-based interior design studio, was built in Madrid’s La Latina neighborhood.
Helenio Barbetta: “The hillside below our building was notoriously instabile and kept crumbling into Arroyo de San Pedro which used to run behind to the Manzanares River.” Aragon says. The structure was intended as both a large retaining wall and a monastic residence. It was used primarily as an inn for important clerics who would be accompanying them at conferences or other religious gatherings.
The church had taken the building and it was sold to private developers in the middle of the 19th century. The building’s unique features remain: exterior walls four feet thick; interior divided into rooms (formerly monks cells); and a hillside location that means a ground-level apartment floats two floors above the street.
It is not common for interior designers to embrace such a unique and restrictive design. Clearly, Lopez Navarro and Aragon are not that kind of designer. Lopez Navarro says, “This is our home, it’s not a showroom and we love that sense of being in a retreat from the city.” “We entertain here with small groups of friends and not large clients events.”
With several 1960s-era photos of centuries-old Madonna statuettes, the designers played up the monastic past of this home. This one is from the 1200s.Pablo ZamoraIt helps, that the Casa Josephine couple also manage one of Madrid’s most chic vintage furniture and art galleries, Rastro. The shop’s 20th-century items are culled from frequent trips to Spain, France and Italy. They focus on handcrafted objects made of simple, but elegant materials such as pine, clay, stone and linen.
The couple’s intention was to preserve the building’s past and use it as a backdrop to their honest and straightforward interpretations of Spanish design throughout the centuries. Many of the original fixtures had been removed during a 1980s renovation. Although they may be sad about the loss of the original oak doors, the designers wanted to preserve what Aragon calls “the spirit and architecture of the monastic architecture” while also using loft-like decor from the 1980s.
The living room is high and open. Above all, a bundle of dried wheat hovers.Pablo ZamoraThe apartment measures approximately 1,000 square feet. It is divided into seven “cells” and an additional room on the second floor. This extra room can be reached via an iron ladder that passes through a hole in one of the floors. The elevator leads to an iron ladder that goes through an opening in the floor. This area is used for storage of their rotating collection of ceramics, sculptures and other objects.
The home is located just off the Plaza del Alamillo. It can be accessed via the street. The living room is dominated by a large tapestry fragment on royal yellow linen, and a sheaf wheat hanging from its vaulted ceiling. The apartment’s only access point is the next cell, which leads to the principal bedroom, guest room and kitchen.
The designers placed a 1980s-era Italian textile with a view to Venice in a corner of their kitchen. A Swiss chest from 18th century serves as a microwave counter, and also displays vintage finds. Pablo ZamoraThe designers’ signature French and Italian rustic-chic furniture are complemented by unique finds such as Indonesian weavings and Berber clay pots made in Tangiers. The family heirloom is the walnut bed made in late-18th century. It’s adorned with a collection of pillows in bright colors in the ’80s.
The apartment also features three large-scale 1960s black and white photo enlargements that depict the Virgin Mary’s sculptures from Renaissance, Romanesque, and Baroque periods.
The guest bedroom mixes 18th-century and 1980s styles. Castilian’s antique walnut bed is made of castilian walnut, and the globe lamp is from 1970s Italy in the style Gae Aulenti.Pablo ZamoraThe apartment’s floors are covered in earth-toned tiles. The tiles have a beautiful mottled glaze that is created by randomly placing metal salts on them while they are still hot from firing. Aragon pointed out that there are many buildings in Madrid with tile floors. “But the salt technique was found to release noxious gases into the air, and was banned. The look we now love is a kind of ’80s time capsule aesthetic.”
These are moments that show Casa Josephine’s ability to blend the elements of past design movements with their sophisticated vision of the future. Even though Madrid’s streams and arroyos may have long passed, this design duo still sees something in the water.
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