"I can enter any space," says Aldo Cibic, "and instantly tell if the person living there loves his life or not." Cibic, 51, is not a psychologist, nor a psychic. He's an architect and designer, and a tour through his home in Vincenza—a converted greenhouse filled with bright colors, unorthodox furnishings and whimsical art—speaks to his own contentment with life. "The key word for my style is vitality," he says.
Cibic's approach to design took its current shape toward the end of his time with the Memphis group, the Italian architecture and design collaborative of which he was a principal member. Founded by Ettore Sottsass in 1980, Memphis was a reaction to the minimalist, so-called "black box" design that reigned in Europe during the seventies. Memphis produced bright, colorful products and furniture—ostensibly, pieces of Pop Art themselves—whose sense of humor contrasted sharply with the utilitarian paradigm that preceded them.
Memphis aimed to breathe life into design, but for many—including Cibic—it overshot its goal, resulting in design that, while lively, seemed as impersonal as the look it had attempted to flout. "Memphis was the right thing at that moment, but after a few years it became too affected," Cibic says. "If you put a book on a Memphis bookshelf, it didn't look nice, because the bookcase itself was more like a sculpture."
After the group disbanded in 1988, Cibic and colleague Antonella Spiezio formed Cibic & Partners in Milan, which made a name for itself with a line of furnishings called "Standard." The items had a sense of color and play, but were more accessible and lifestyle-oriented than Memphis's ornate designs. Since then, the firm has produced everything from teapots and tables to buildings and websites. But Cibic's signature achievement might well be his stunning Vicenza home, which he shares with his wife Cynthia and eight-year-old son, Smilian.
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