Known for infusing classical Roman design into contemporary residences and superyachts worldwide, architect Achille Salvagni turns his meticulous eye to the hospitality realm.

When Achille Salvagni speaks of his general aversion to rules, it&rsquo;s not exactly in the chaotic,&nbsp;enfant terrible sense. Rather, the Rome-based designer describes an almost scientific method of rebellion. &ldquo;Any time I receive an input as a rule, I turn it upside down. I try the exact opposite, to test it,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If a client asks me for an all-white room, I propose, What about all black?&rdquo; Salvagni&rsquo;s namesake atelier, which also has galleries in London, New York, and, as of December, Palm Beach, is behind interiors and furniture that captivate in evocative contradictions: classical equine busts alongside Art Deco&ndash;inspired decor; a bronze-and-onyx chandelier with spindly appendages stretching across the ceiling; hulking, rectangular cabinets with delicate, organic details and subtle asymmetries. He embraces curves over hard edges, believing that natural comfort lies in the maternal. One might correctly intuit that he&rsquo;s guarded against conventional design wisdom. &ldquo;You can follow a rule for good design and be extremely banal,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and go against a rule and be extremely original.&rdquo;

The designer, now 55 with salt-and-pepper hair, is clearly the thinking type, arriving at conclusions with a solid understanding of what he&rsquo;s for and against, and why. Growing up in a town just south of Rome, Salvagni learned art appreciation from both parents; his father&rsquo;s work in construction led to an early fascination with architecture. As a young man refining his own taste, his single most formative experience was discovering the contrast between the Italian capital, where he studied architecture at the University of Rome, and Stockholm, where he spent a year and a half. &ldquo;In Rome, I was surrounded by old layers of history,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Stockholm was the first game-changer in my approach to aesthetics, because I understood the legacy and deepness of organicism: bending rather than adding, nature versus machine.&rdquo; While the attitude in Rome is to preserve the past through its buildings (his own office resides in a 19th-century former carriage house near the ancient Roman Forum), the Scandinavian ethos looks toward the future&mdash;which in practice also takes on a timeless quality through stark, natural forms. &ldquo;I always refer to curves, to softness, but with certain patinas, details, and motifs honoring Roman heritage,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;These two extremes fused together and created my vocabulary.&rdquo;

It&rsquo;s then poetic on some level that a particular in-between space became Salvagni&rsquo;s big break: It turned out he had an eye for yacht interiors&mdash;defined at once by solid ground and the seas, untethered to place. Ever conscious of legacy, he also notes how, for him, &ldquo;a boat evokes an old time, in a new language.&rdquo; Back in the early 2000s, the prevailing style in yachts was an imposing, dark sleekness with gold accents, conceived less for leisure and more for spectacle. As Salvagni considered the yacht that was his first interior design commission in 2002, it seemed intuitive that the atmosphere be light and airy, defined by bright wood with a natural finish and softly sloping facets. &ldquo;Not a single surface was pretending to be something other than wood,&rdquo; he adds. A decade later, his design for the superyacht&nbsp;Numptia, embodying similar ideas, won multiple top honors at the Monaco Yacht Show. Across his roughly 30 yachts to date, this simple, Scandinavian-inflected approach smoothly assimilates to constantly changing surroundings while still anchored in a distinct visual identity.
In 2013, one yacht client invited Salvagni to do his apartment on Central Park, and this became the first project completed with the designer&rsquo;s original furniture. The endeavor ultimately inaugurated a new arm of his business, as Achille Salvagni Atelier expanded into limited-edition collectible designs. Out this spring, the Assouline book Achille features highlights of these creations from the past nearly 15 years, selected by curator Glenn Adamson. It&rsquo;s evident that, given full autonomy, Salvagni is keen to tell stories about his cultural heritage through form. The Antinoo cabinet, for instance, is an homage to Antinous, a man so beautiful that his lover, the Roman Emperor Hadrian, locked him away to keep for himself; in between the cabinet doors, in bronze, is a faint outline of a face, peering out as if through prison bars. Several pieces have bronze embellishments stamped with curious, rustic-looking geometric patterns; these are the results of Salvagni pressing uncooked pasta into clay molds&mdash;rigatoni, spaghetti, fusilli, and more, lending different textures and shapes. After such playful experimentation always comes vigorous effort. Every item is hand-built by some 50 artisans in his Rome workshop, plus occasional outsourcing (they share a bronze foundry with the Vatican). Designs often take up to five months to complete; his Santorini cabinet, with bronze monkeys swinging across its facade, took a year.

Salvagni has another milestone on the horizon, with the unveiling of his first-ever hotel this year. Nestled in the Italian Alps, Le Graal Cortina will unfold in a gut-renovated 1920s palazzo, with Salvagni&rsquo;s vision shaping the new interior top to bottom. Rather than taking inspiration from the traditional wooden chalet, the aesthetic leans into a more fantastical, even whimsical, version of that image: In the lobby, plaster silhouettes of skiers float across the ceilings, while sconces balance on two ski-shaped supports. Throughout the building, more than 50 portraits from the 18th and 19th centuries, mixed with photos from the 1950s and &rsquo;60s, convey a sense of multilayered history. The palette is soft yellows, greens, and pinks. It seems Salvagni is taking everything he&rsquo;s learned&mdash;about past and future, nature and form&mdash;and having some fun. As his latest chapter, that&rsquo;s a nice culmination&mdash;though, of course, far from the end. &ldquo;I always feel like I have a lot of time. Which is not true. But it&rsquo;s how I approach life in general, so I&rsquo;ve never stopped dreaming,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m on a beautiful journey surrounded by beautiful people, and that&rsquo;s enough to continue with energy and passion.&rdquo;

Achille Salvagni Brings Roman Opulence to the World of Hospitality

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