Sofia Old Apartment

The visual logic of the classic computer game Tetris is reflected in the mosaic floors of this old Sofia apartment. Architects rearrange the layers of time and win against the broken continuity. The story of this interior begins in the way a story of a Parisian or Viennese apartment might begin. It is located in the heart of the city, in the small Garibaldi square. If we were talking about Paris or Vienna, the narrative would continue with the preserved old aristocratic spaces, the light, the original classical ornaments, the parquet floors, the fireplace, the mirror above it… But here the narrative would continue with the broken continuity, the ruin and the decline to which the place has been brought during the socialist period. When the architects first entered here, led by the new owner, the traces of the glamor of the apartment’s bourgeois past has been erased forever. The spaces have been disastrously partitioned to create three separate apartments with the classical cornices destroyed and the mosaics impossible to restore. “Often times, in reconstructions, the work is similar to archaeological work. We were looking for old blueprints, looking at the preserved original layouts in the apartment downstairs. We tried to re-build the image of the bourgeois apartment from the time of its first owner, who invited his partners to the cabin, right next to the front door.” The huge reconstruction begins aiming at the restoration of the former beauty and emotion of the spaces and mixing it with modern solutions, providing comfortable environment for the modern lifestyle. The vestibule structure is preserved, many of the areas are open and redefined as functionality. The abundance of light, the white walls and the paneling accentuate the floors – parquet arranged in the classic old herringbone style and mosaic arranged like Tetris. “We wanted to make a modern interpretation of the old mosaic. In Portugal, when a tile is broken in the mosaic, a new piece is inserted. The challenge was to create a home within one year, and making it look as if it has been created for a very long time and gradually enriched over the years. That’s why we combine styles and eras and we do it measuredly and sparingly. This is how we accumulate time in space.” (text: Bravacasa)

Architecture: L6 studio (Adriana Dimitrova, Ivaylo Zahariev)
Stage of implementation: completed 2017
Basic characteristics: interior design
Location: Sofia