Three Layer Cake

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The Incurable Romantic

“My story is really romantic.  I love romanticism, and I think this space is really romantic,” Oscar said as he began to tell me how he came from Argentina as an arts teacher, and progressed through a small-time flower shop, haute couture fashion, and costume-design to become a talented floral designer with a shop in Rome’s historic city center, just a brief walk from Piazza Navona. 

Oscar Aciar, part-owner of Il Giardino Segreto, ‘the Secret Garden’, is a restless body whose relationship to creativity is best described as an addiction.  Before moving to Italy, from his native Argentina, he taught manual arts to students grades 6-10.  Deciding he needed to mine his creativity further, he moved to Rome and began a two-year course to be a tailor for haute couture at the Ida Ferri School.  To pay his studies, he worked at a florist, but wouldn’t come back to flowers as an art form for several years.  After finishing his course of study, he worked in television designing costumes for the RAI (Italian Radio and Television), and from there with one of Italy’s largest tour operators, Valtour.  During his two-year tenure with Valtour he was responsible for costumes in their Africa division, and traveled back and forth between Italy and Africa to help with shows that they held in their resorts. 

Upon returning to Italy after an extended stay in Africa, Oscar began to suffer from severe depression and he withdrew.  It was a book on Floral Design that he was given as a gift from a friend which helped him make a connection with the world again and which gave him motivation to combat his depression.  In 1997, he began to study the art of floral design, first studying in the Netherlands, then to Belgium, Germany, and finally France, to Paris.  During this time, he became an expert in the floral design techniques of these four countries.  Upon his return to Italy, he worked freelance and put together a portfolio of very high-profile clients.  Thanks to his considerable skill, he was offered a position as Artistic Director at the Formiche Verdi, a flower shop in Rome’s historic center.  It was here that he met his current business partner Paola Massardi, an attorney specialized in international law who had taken landscaping courses in Italy and abroad.  Oscar accepted Paola’s proposal of opening a commercial space which would combine their combined passion for flowers and plants with their other passions for interior design and contemporary art.  In just three month’s time, they developed the concept for Il Giardino Segreto, fitted it out, and inaugurated the space. 

Notwithstanding the continuous change that characterizes Oscar’s life, the thread of romanticism has remained constantly woven in his own personal fabric, adding value to his professions which have always coincided with his passions.  Paola, on the other hand, has kept her profession and her passions side by side, as different as they may be.  Il Giardino Segreto is a unique space for Rome, which combines Paola’s and Oscar’s passions.  It’s a homage to romanticism set in a contemporary context and shaped by the manual dexterity of artisans.  Even the small street in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods of Rome is a juxtaposition of antiquity with contemporary.  Centuries old buildings which present modernity on the outside hide uncharacteristically lush courtyards on the inside, glimpses from another era.  Across from Il Giardino Segreto is a sushi shop, Poggenpohl (an ultramodern kitchen store), a contemporary art gallery, and more.  And even with its floor to ceiling shop front window and frameless sliding glass door entry, its understated green interior makes for a subtle impact, almost rendering the Il Giardino Segreto invisible. 

The space is an island of innovation and visual stimulation, a secret garden within the city.  A place where one can suspend rigid beliefs and preconceived ideas to encounter art forms which push the envelope of ‘normal’ conventions.  The corner space is spartan, fitted with few shelves which are stocked with limited edition, commissioned tabletop pieces.  The focal points of the shop are also limited edition, commissioned garden sculptures and structures for the exterior, or interior if you like.  Although they are very few, the visual impact is high.  It’s impossible to characterize the commissioned tabletop pieces which never stay in the store more than three months and are never repeated, and it’s impossible to categorize the commissioned garden sculptures, which often sell within a week of their exhibits.  At Il Giardino Segreto, less is perfect. 

Il Giardino Segreto is truly shaped by the vision of two people who are unafraid to realize their dreams and to allow others to partake in shaping them.  Like a person, the space is always evolving, always growing, always looking for the best way to express creativity.  It really is very romantic, and it carries the signature of Oscar’s personality, just as he promised when he began the interview.

Your design philosophy:  How would you like your style to be described to a potential client?  Research.  We are contemporary.  Not the classic canons of design, but not strictly functional.  We represent a break with the past.  We accept highly designed things but they don’t necessarily have to be functional.

Where does the idea of Il Giardino Segreto come from?  Tell me a little about the development of the idea through the realization of the space.  It was Paola’s idea, who is a contemporary art collector.  I was working as the Creative Director of a flower and plant shop, she was my client.  After having followed a couple of commissions for her, she asked me if I would like to join a partnership with her to creat a space that would give life to our passion for design, flowers, the garden, and art.  The name comes from a phrase by St. Augustine about interior peace and about the Secret Garden which is one’s own soul.

 
The space we’re in now wasn’t the first we saw.  Paola got the idea for Il Giardino Segreto in January, and we inaugurated the shop in March.  In the meantime, we kept seeing spaces that weren’t right either because the contracts were too complicated or for some reason or another.  But because the financial obligations were about to kick in, we had to open the shop as soon as possible.  In the end, we found this space which was had been an antiques dealer but had been out of business for some time.  It was really dark, like a fortress.  We stripped it down to the bare bones, which is pretty much how it has remained.  We worked with two architects, Alessandra Manfredi and Laura Pistoia, who helped us realize our vision.  In redesigning the space the only color used was a green-grey that reminds us of moss and water.

 
The inauguration featured the art of four artists, among which were my floral compositions.  The theme was The Enchanted Forest and it was really the epitome of romanticism, a sentiment that we were feeling particularly strongly when we inaugurated the shop.  The exhibit filled the internal space and flowed out in front of the store into the street so as to entice passersby as well as our invited guests.  It was fabulous!

How does the space distinguish itself from other commercial activities?  Our concept is not commercial, even if at the end of the day we are a day.  It’s like a school here.  People go away with a new way of seeing things.  Our first priority is that we only do what we’re passionate about.  Earning money is last on the list.  We have a lot of fun, but we’ll never be millionaires because of this. 

 
Paola loves the garden and I love interiors.  Il Giardino Segreto is a search for interior design and the creation of designs for the garden.  In our space you’ll find work created almost exclusively by artist-artisans, work you could almost consider contemporary art.  Our collections are always in evolution.  If you look at the pictures from the first year we were open, you can see the difference between then and now.  You can see the evolution.

How do you select the artists who exhibit at Il Giardino Segreto?  We only use artists-artisans who work in iron, ceramics, steel, wood, plexiglass and glass.  We find them through specialized art journals or through exhibits, which we visit quite a lot.  We use Italian artists, but also non-Italian artists.  We do limited edition series only.  Once an object is sold, that’s it.  You won’t find it again.  People who know us come here because they saw something unique, and they know they have to buy it in that moment.  We don’t keep things more than three months.

 
The critera is pretty evenly divided between our own personal tastes (what we find beautiful), and the reputation of the artist.  We look for artists who work with materials we are interested in, materials which are in some way poetic.  One of our favorite is Silvia Zagni, a ceramicist from Bologna who was one of the inaugural artists together with Sicilian Antonino Sciortino.  Antonino works with hand-cooked iron, an industrial technique used in the 1920s for iron works, but he obviously applies it to contemporary structures today.

 
Do you note any trends in Italian/Roman tastes in the decoration of their interiors and gardens?  How have these tastes changed since you opened the shop?  Italians’ taste, and Romans in particular, often classic, is really changing for the better.  I can already see it in the brief three years I’ve been in the shop—they are opening up to things that they would have never considered before, like the comination of more than one style in a home, for example modern furniture combined with antiques.  I can see this whenever they blindly accept the things I propose.  They allow themselves to be influenced.

Notwithstanding Italy’s artistic and creative history, from a commercial point of view, talking about shops and places to buy things, places that stimulate the senses, Italy is really a desert.  There’s a huge difference between Milan and Rome.  Milan if certainly more alive, but originality and the inspiration you find in places like Buenos Aires and Paris are just non-existant here!

What is the most difficult aspect of managing a space like Il Giardino Segreto? Without a doubt it’s my personality.  I get bored easily and quickly, so I am always on the look for something new.  This is a positive thing on one hand because you’ll always find new and unique things at the store.  But personally it is also a negative thing because by the time things come to the shop, they already seem like old concepts.  My head is always searching the future, but at the same time I love the past.  I’m moody and poor Paola has to put up with me!  It’s not easy at all!

Where do you find the inspiration for your exhibits and your compositions?  From life and travels.  Together with Paola and her partner, Andrea, we look for current themes.  We talk a lot to figure out how we’d like to present it.  Often the ideas come spontaneously.  Once we find a theme, for example water, we contact an artist and propose a collaboration.  We tell them the theme and give them free reign to interpret it as they wish.  We ask that they create a series of objects that represent their own idea of the theme.  We never impose rules or our own ideas.  The end result is a program of unique exhibits.  We have done twenty since the space was inaugurated in 2003.  My favorite was Oltre (Beyond), done by Silvia Zagni together with sculptures I did which were a personal triumph.

 
The most satisfying project you’ve done.  Mine is definitely a wedding in Capri, of the daughter of a well-known pharmaceutical family.  It was really romantic and contemporary at the same time.  I did everything from fitting it out, to the set, the location of the wedding, everything.  For Paola, I know it’s a terrace at Palazzo Farnese and generally the sunny mediterranean gardens and spaces where she can use silvery and light palates.

 
Why flowers?  Flowers and plants are obviously a part of the shop’s past, and represent my romantic side, the dreamer in everyone.  But the flower in and of itself is a passage and I use it less and less as the protagonist in our exhibits and installations.  When I do use them though, both in the shop and in private commissions, i prefer to only use native flowers and plants, not greenhouse cultivated specimens.  I use Mediterranean plants, so never orchids, anthurium, and so forth.