In 2011 Rizzoli published a coffee table book called
The Invention of the Past, the most ambitious publication to date representing the work of Milan-based
Studio Peregalli, designers and architects. Their approach is summarized in a passage from the book's introduction by Laura Sartori Rimini and Roberto Peregalli
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"Our idea of place (whether it is a place that we have to build up from nothing or a place that already exists and requires modification) is closely tied to memory and to time. We believe that everything is already there to be seen; therefore we are able to rethink the places and reinvent them. It is the memory – perhaps even with all its imperfections – of a drawing from the pages of an old book that comes back to the surface with a haunting echo. Memory of the past should not be conceived as a desire to revive a historical copy, but it should be interpreted as an invention that, arising from the memory of classical forms, is projected toward the future. In a world in which the signature that the artist leaves on the work readily identifies it, our work on the contrary endeavours to blend with its surroundings in an attempt to elude the signature."
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| Paris |
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| Lugano |
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| Tuscany |
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| Lago Maggiore |
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| Milan |
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| Milan |
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| Milan |
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| Milan |
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| Tangier |
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| Laura Sartori Rimini |
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| Roberto Peregalli |
Their text opens with a quotation from
Life a User's Manual by Georges Perec
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"The canvas portrays an empty room, painted gray, virtually empty of furniture. In the center, a metallic gray desk on which lie a handbag, a bottle of milk, a diary, and a book open at the twin portraits of Racine and Shakespeare. On the rear wall there hangs a picture of a landscape with a setting sun. To the side, a door ajar, through which, one surmises, Eurydice, just a few seconds before, has disappeared forever."
