A hollow tower, seven and a half meters in height, fringed at its top – a homage to the spires of the Duomo and the merlons of the Castello Sforzesco – rises in front of the statue of Francesco Hayez, in Piazzetta Brera, in the famous Brera District of Milan. Its title is “Scrigno del Cielo (Jewelbox in the Sky): Architecture Inside A Window”. It has been designed by Cherubino Gambardella and Simona Ottieri for Capoferri, and will be part of the exhibition circuit, taking place in the Brera Design District from April 3rd to April 9th.

The exterior walls of the tower are composed of a myriad of profiles from wood and metal. Diverse in colour, shape and structure; examples of the variation in which windows can manifest themselves; elements where architecture becomes decisive in changing the boundary between exterior and interior. A small tower of great presence: shiny and opaque, an enigma on which three windows, placed at the sightline of a man, a woman and a child, open to the inside.

The slightly cantilevered openings direct the view onto a mirror below, placed inside the magic tower. It is here that the message of this piece of art lies; the view into the mirror will capture the colours of the Milan sky, the clouds, and obscurity (or clarity). And, unexpectedly, a secret treasure: on the inside of the walls of the tower, as if they were precious gems, a gameboard of hinges, locks, brackets, and hardware components made from brass, bronze, aluminium and stainless steel.

An homage to the artigianal yet precise quality that characterises the bespoke windows of Capoferri – eclectic structures that belong both in the realm of architecture and of interior decoration. Gambardellarchitetti have, through this piece of art, spoken about the millennial culture of the relationship between building and windows, between exterior and interior, between threshold and crossing. Situated in a symbolic location in Milan, surrounded by monumental buildings, the tower captures the sky itself; describing its incessant and ever-changing beauty.

Design: Gambardellarchitetti