Medieval Skyscraper: the Palazzo dei Consoli in Gubbio Italy

The Palazzo dei Consoli rises dramatically above the medieval Umbrian town of Gubbio.

Gubbio's soaring Palazzo dei Consoli is a symbol of the town's once great medieval power and is one of the most beautiful gothic palaces in Italy, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento from Umbria. Photographs by Jeanne-Marie Cilento and Ambrosio De Lauro

Driving through the rugged green terrain of Umbria you eventually reach Gubbio in the far northeastern corner of the Italian region. The ancient town is located on the slope of Mt Ingino, one of the mountains that form the spine of the Apennines running through central Italy. Looming above the town is the grey-pink stone mass of the castellated Palazzo dei Consoli.

Built between 1332 and 1337, the design of the building is attributed by some scholars to Gattapone and by others to Angelo da Orvieto. The majestic palazzo has plain walls made from blocks of local stone and decorated with a row of windows on its upper storey with a series of hanging arches and a Guelph battlement above. It is easy to imagine in this austere setting, the scene from Herman Hesse's novel Steppenwolf where the isolated protagonist consoles himself by recalling a scene the author may have seen during his travels: "That slender cypress on the hill over Gubbio that, though split and riven by a fall of stone, yet held fast to life and put forth with its last resources a new green branch at the top".

The imposing complex of Palazzo dei Consoli, the Palazzo Pretorio and the piazza which links them were first talked about between 1321 and 1322. The aim of this early urban plan was for the buildings to be erected in a place that could link the different quarters of the town. To construct the buildings, huge vaults were designed underneath to support the piazza which appears suspended above the town.

Tremendous engineering works were needed to create a large enough flat space on the side of  the hill to construct the Palace and the Piazza della Signoria in front of it. The building was erected on the massive arched structure below and is the largest in the world. The piazza and the surrounding architectural complex represented a new style, one that would only flower into full bloom a century later in Florence during the Renaissance.

The palace has a square plan and sits above a series of terraces corresponding to the building's lower floors. The palace was the first in the city served by a public hydraulic system, which fed a fountain - still found in the main salon of the interior. The palace's façade on the piazza is stone with round arched windows in the upper part. Above them are merlons supported by ogival arches. The lower part of the building features mullioned windows enclosing the Gothic-style portal with a 16th century fresco in the lunette. The entrance, preceded by a fan-shaped staircase, leads to the arengo, a big hall with barrel vaults that was used in the Middle Ages by Gubbio’s parliamentary assembly.

Today, the Palazzo dei Consoli houses the Civic Museum exhibiting archaeological finds from Gubbio's ancient Roman Threatre and other sites plus the famous bronze Iguvine Tablets.  Gubbio’s important picture gallery in the palace contains works by local painters and Tuscan masters. The building still retains a Medieval iron cage which was once used for public humiliation of robbers and criminals.

The rest of the historical centre of Gubbio looks essentially medieval with dim, narrow Gothic streets and dark-grey stone houses dating to the 14th and 15th centuries built for wealthy merchants. But the town has more ancient origins and the hills above Gubbio were first occupied in the Bronze Age. An important centre of ancient Umbrian peoples in pre-Roman times, the city became famous for the discovery of the Iguvine Tablets, a set of bronze tablets that constitute the largest surviving text in ancient Umbrian. After the Roman conquest in the 2nd century BC, the town originally called Iguvium, remained an important city with a Roman amphitheatre ~ the second-largest that survives in the world.

The city reached the height of its power at the beginning of the Middle Ages, sending one thousand knights to fight in the First Crusade under Count Girolamo Gabrielli. The following centuries were turbulent as Gubbio was constantly engaged in wars against surrounding towns in Umbria. With the decline of the political reign of the powerful Gabrielli family, Gubbio became part of the territories of the Montefeltro. Federico de Montefeltro rebuilt the ancient Palazzo Ducale creating a studiolo veneered with intarsia just like his renowned study at Urbino. The famous maiolica industry at Gubbio reached its apogee in the first half of the 16th century with metallic lustre glazes imitating gold and copper. A major centre for the production of Italian pottery during the Renaissance, the most important potter was Maestro Giorgio Andreoli.

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The arcaded loggia on the palace's top floors with views across the town to the surrounding Apennines.

From Gubbio's lower town, the Palazzo dei Consoli dominates the medieval city.

Walking through Gubbio past 14th and 15th Century houses, the palace's crenellated battlements are always in view. 

The entrance to the palace is through a great round-arched doorway which predates by a century the rise of Classicism during the Renaissance in Florence.

Built from the local pink-grey limestone, the Palazzo dei Consoli has a mixture of both Gothic and Classical elements that made the design at the forefront of architectural fashion when it was built between 1332-1337.

A brick and stone walkway leading up from the town to the Piazza della Signoria and the Palazzo dei Consoli

Looking down from the main portal of the palace to the wide-open space of the terracotta-coloured piazza supported, like the palace, on great arched vaults below ~ a tremendous feat of engineering for the medieval period.

One of the medieval doors in oak with cast-iron locks that opens from the palace's main entrance into the ground floor's enormous vaulted assembly room.

During the Middle Ages, this large room on the ground floor of the palace was the meeting place for Gubbio's local government. 

Today, the barrel-vaulted space is home to the town's civic museum with it's collection of ancient Umbrian, Roman and medieval artefacts.

Roman terracotta storage pots are mixed with fragments from ancient buildings that pre-date the town's medieval buildings we see today.

Terracotta and stone coat of arms in the palace's assembly hall

Marble sarcophagus with portrait busts and genii of the Seasons 3rd Century A.D

Ancient  Roman stele or gravestone found in Gubbio and exhibited in the Palazzo dei Consoli's main hall.

A worn stone internal stairway between the top floors of the palace.

One of the iron-barred windows on the top floor of the palace looking out across the town.

The Palazzo dei Consoli's ample loggia that provides views right across Gubbio and the surrounding countryside to the mountains.

Looking down from the palace's loggia to the medieval centro storico and out to the newer parts of Gubbio built on the flatter land outside the centre. 

An early photograph of the largest room on the piano nobile that was used for formal dinners with it's long oak table and chairs and walls hung with the works of local and Tuscan painters. 

The Palazzo dei Consoli today with it's original furniture, fountains and paintings.

A massive stone fireplace with Classical rather than Gothic decorative details that was used to heat the main salon on the piano nobile. 

 The famous maiolica made in Gubbio during the Renaissance and created by Maestro Giorgio Andreoli between 1525-1530.

Maiolica plate from Gubbio with a sophisticated decoration of hand-painted grotesques and a central medallion of woman in dress of the 16th Century.

A solid walnut chest for storing materials dating from the 15th Century.

 Maestro of the Cross Gubbio, Crucifix 14th Century, tempura on board. 

Earthenware pots made in gubbio in the 14th Century.

An iron Roman jug with decorative handle dating to 500 B.C found in Gubbio

A Roman marble architectural fascia from a building in Gubbio. 

A bird carved into the local stone that decorated one of the towns traditional Umbrian houses predating the Romans.

A Classical Roman male figure in white marble discovered in Gubbio. 

One of the bronze Iguvine tablets discovered in Gubbio that show the Etruscan and Latin alphabet used to describe Umbrian rituals. 

A stone carved panel created by the pre-Roman Umbrian people that lived in Gubbio.

Terracotta ancient Roman oil lamps found in Gubbio

An early Classical door surround in marble above the entrance to a 15th Century house.

Gubbio is built on terraces rising up the hillside and the town has strategic views across the countryside.

One of the tall 14th Century houses built above the carriageway leading up to Gubbio's piazza and the Palazzo dei Consoli

Brilliant Colour and Bold Forms at London's Graduate Fashion Week

Naomi Lobley's collection of sculptural chunky knits at her catwalk show for De Monfort University

At this year's Graduate Design Week the world's best new fashion designers presented exciting collections to thrilled audiences. Design & Art Magazine's fashion correspondent Limor Helfgott files a special report from London.

THE annual high-octane fashion week in June for graduates of the world's best design universities is an opportunity to see the future of fashion in the making. Considered the creative event to find young innovative designers, it was the starting place for many talented fashion stars such as Stella McCartney, Christopher Bailey and Karen Milan.

This year's shows brought together more than 1000 graduates from 40 establishments in the United Kingdom. There were collections from 16 colleges and universities from around the globe including the United States, Turkey, Japan, Italy, Denmark and Israel. The designers presented their work in catwalk shows with a dynamic and international mix of models. The winner of the best international collection was Angus Chiang of Taiwan's Shih Chien University. He presented psychedelic futuristic spacemen designs full of eye-popping colour. The fashion schools who stood out among a talented crowd were De Montfort and the University Of East London.

The UEL and De Montfort University both had designers who presented work that was full of originality and verve. It will be interesting to see how they progress in the fashion industry. The De Montforts students' catwalk showed a mix of contemporary ideas that shone through their collections. The university takes pride in offering an inspiring environment for creation and teaching the students to be visually literate and have a strong grasp of technical know-how to become confident fashion designers. Below are the collections that stood out by individual designers.

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Grace Cook created a feminine collection of sheer panels and tassels at the De Montfort University show.

Full of eye-popping colour Charlotte Mathews' show (below) had an unusual mixture of textiles, patterns and detailing. The collection was rebellious with psychedelic prints and outsize shapes that recalled the phosphorescent colours of the 1990s. Accessories included a boom box on the shoulder or as a bag and headphones to go with a Walkman in hand ~ all created for the rave clubbing crowd.

Charlotte Mathews' confident and bold collection with a retro 1990s aesthetic using bright colour and generous silhouettes.

A boom-box makes a capacious handbag at Charlotte Mathew's collection

Presenting a light-hearted collection, Jade Wainright's designs were full of layers, bright colours and mixed floral fabrics and patterns. She presented a kimono-shaped jacket, a jumpsuit accessorised with large jewels in sequins, metallic embellishments and knitted bags.

Jade Wainright's layers of colour, pattern and different fabrics created a feminine look.

Showing the the most wacky womenswear collection, Kelly Frost playfully took the current trend for cat motifs to another level. Synthetic furs and patterns such as giant polka dots and plaid was all put together in a juxtaposition of colour and texture. The dominant colours were bubblegum pink and neon yellow in socks, shoes and jelly sandals. This collection symbolised a daring, non-conformist kind of girl with love for some extra attention.

 Kelly Frost's collection was full of contrasting textures and hues with cat motifs

Kim Philips collection was selected to be presented on the catwalk showing the best of the shows on Graduate Fashion Week’s last day. Philips designed a collection that works well for the British weather ~ especially for wet summers. There were floral Macs, big bulky rain jackets, jelly boots, a bomber jacket with a 3D bulldog face on the back and pom-pom ears headgear. The strangest pieces were the check nose masks that covered some of models faces.

Kim Philip's zany collection of winter knits and puffy, shiny jackets embossed with floral motifs.

Inspired by farm life, Elizabeth Arthur’s collection was quite rare as fashion and rural pursuits are often mutually exclusive enterprises. But her technical abilities made the difference in this collection and featured china-pink and azulejo-type prints. The garments looked like they were made out of different pieces but were in fact cut as a one piece of garment.

Inspired by pink porcelain china and farm wear, Elizabeth Arthur created an upbeat and fun show

In the knitwear section, Naomi Lobley’s stunning collection of chunky fringe knits used mohair and crochet in a palette of mute colors, crafted with perfectly-placed holes and occasionally touched by a patch of vibrant neon in light blue or yellow. Each one of the pieces fabrics and patterns was presented in a bold way and created the perfect ending for the De Montfort catwalk.

Naomi Lobley's bulbous cream knitwear accessorised with bold, neon jewellery

Naomi Lobley's flamboyant knitwear combined with a lime-green and blue cellulose skirt.

The University of East London opened the third day of Graduation Fashion Week in style with a catwalk that was both original and inspiring. The students proved they have good technique and great vision. This school's show was highly praised by excited bloggers and certainly raised the level for the rest of the universities showing that day. All seventeen collections by the talented students proved why this school has created a name for itself and is considered to be a manufacturer of  forward-looking and  innovative fashion. The outstanding collections are described below:

A palette of pastel blues and pinks gave Jazz Gina Brar's collection  a soft 18th Century look with voluminous hemlines creating dramatic silhouettes. Looking like delicate pieces of art, the designs included ruffles, pleats and embroidery of tiny details.

The pastels and voluminous skirts by Jazz Gina Brar

Jazz Gina Brar was inspired by the 18th Century for her graduate colllectiion

Marietta Kalvi presented an outstanding collection combining a few of the hottest trends of the moment: tailored jackets, playful midi skirts teamed with sheer tops creating a casual and effortless sense of style. An interesting twist was the use of red together with neutral colors making a particularly feminine look offset the model's anarchic hair cuts.

An intricate pattern on pale silky blouses offset brilliant red skirts and vests at Marietta Kalvi's show

The aristocratic and elegant collection by Rochelle Mullings was inspired by a dark period in London when Jack the Ripper dominated the headlines in the late 19th Century. The designs were a creative interpretation of Victorian fashion. The designer mixed ruffles at the waistline and a voluminous hemline with trousers and layers of colour. Deep red, brown, mustard yellow and gray symbolised the dim and foggy hues of a soot-filled London.

Dark and gothic 19th Century tales inspired  Rochelle Mulling collection and belies their elegant cut and rich colour.

Brilliant colour enlivened Elizabeth Harrison’s collection with a vibrant palette of bright yellow, blue and red. Tailored yet feminine silhouettes with a laid back attitude, trousers and skirts with special cuts and combination of fabrics made the designs appear fresh and full of energy.

Clashing colours that work together at Elizabeth Harrison's show enhanced by sharp hair and make-up that completed the look.

During the menswear shows, Charles Chambers' collection attracted attention. Presenting cycling gear with chic, he was inspired by the biking community. Traditional British tailoring combined with sportswear and by using layers of jeans and shorts over leggings, Chambers' added a cool edge. Three quarter trousers, biker’s gloves and bags, all created an urban sporty style. The look was accessorised with a bike – that was carried onto the catwalk by the models and used in the show.

Charles Chambers brought the bike and its fashions to this year's catwalk at Graduate Fashion Week while Joel Bostock created a sporty and modern collection (below).

Inspired by shadows and trees, Fracesca Holgado's collection for the University of East London.

Jamie MacKinnon's menswear collection was sophisticated and full of rich textures

Mackinnon proved again this season that black is the new black.

Scintillating colour at the Kirdandeep Bassan collection at Northampton University

British Artist Thomas Houseago's New Exhibition Opens in Rome

Thomas Houseago sketching at his studio in Los Angeles surrounded by art works in progress. The building houses drawing and sculpture studios plus offices where the artist employs 20 staff. Photograph by Spencer Lowell

Taking the art world by storm, LA-based British artist Thomas Houseago creates hulking sculptures in plaster, hemp, iron and bronze. Inspired by African art and Modern masters from Rodin to Picasso, the figurative sculptures are full of brute emotive power. Houseago's new exhibition Roman Figures opens in Rome at the Gagosian Gallery, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento

A few minutes before the end of the opening of the new Thomas Houseago exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery, the red-haired artist bounds up the stairs to be immediately surrounded by a scrum of waiting journalists and Roman VIPs (pronounced like “zips” in Italian). It takes Houseago ten minutes to glad-hand the crowd in the gallery’s vestibule before he begins to look flustered by the people pressing around him and murmurs, “Where can I get a drink in this place?”

Walking up the hill of Via Francesco Crispi you can see the gallery's imposing neo-classical facade rising splendidly above the street. Despite its massive fluted columns, the rich Art Deco iconography of the building owes more to New York than to the classical ruins of the Eternal City. A suitable base for the first of Larry Gagosian’s galleries to open in Europe after his successful New York and London ventures. Built in 1921, the Rome gallery was originally a bank and was redesigned by architect Firouz Galdo with Caruso St John in 2007, transforming the classical space into a state-of-the-art contemporary gallery.

At the Roman Figures opening, Thomas Houseago is eventually swept into the great oval space of the main gallery on a river of people dressed in the kind of artistically odd clothes the conservative Romans habitually avoid. The artist is confronted by his massive reclining sculpture that dominates the space. The dynamic curve of the enormous ovoid room embraces the sculptural plaster heads hung along the walls looking like mammoth sculls, forming a macabre classical chorus to the sculpture at the centre of the room.

The giant reclining form recalls both the Dying Gaul in the Capitoline Museums and the rough musculature of Michelangelo's  rippling sculptures. Cast in plaster and hemp from a clay form, inside the figure’s iron supports are visible. While the sculpture looks smooth and finished from one side, walking around to the other you see clearly the crude armature. Called Reclining Figure (For Rome) the headless body rests prone on a plywood plinth, its surfaces visibly ruffled and smoothed by the artist’s hands and feet. “I am fascinated by the act of making art," says Houseago. "And in a broad sense, by how an artist responds to the world. I want to get rid of the readymade and figure out how I react to the world."

Apart from the large-scale sculpture Reclining Figure, the Roman Figures exhibition includes seven sculpted masks plus Walking Boy on Plinth, all done in 2013. The Roman Masks build upon the Western modernist interest in spiritually charged tribal objects from Africa and the South Pacific. Crafted from clay, cast into plaster and hemp, and reinforced with iron armatures, the skull-like reliefs have an abstract, expressive power.

As an artist, Houseago wrests new vitality from the classical figure and engages in a dialogue with the past, retracing the history of figurative sculpture through his own contemporary experience. He draws upon classical mythology, tribal art, Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Italian Mannerism as well as science fiction figures like Darth Vader. The churning surfaces of his sculptures are from jagged cuts and from the artist using his hands and feet to create his works. Houseago sometimes includes paper drawings as part of the sculpture. Powerful and emotive, the figures feel both ancient and modern and embody the existential trauma of everyday life.

Houseago explained to Design & Art Magazine that the Rome sculptures grew out of a difficult time in his life.  He certainly had a very challenging start as a young boy and student in Yorkshire but has had an extraordinarily fast-track career to success in the last ten years. Brought up in a working-class family in Leeds, Houseago left for London at 19 years old to attend Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design. Later he studied at De Ateliers in Amsterdam where he met artist Matthew Monahan and his future wife, painter Amy Bessone.

A decade ago he was a struggling British artist living in Brussels with bankruptcy looming. But Houseago decided to change direction pack up his life, destroy his old work and leave Europe to make a new start in Los Angeles. "Now everyone thinks I was being canny and strategic by moving to LA," the artist has said. "But in fact it was an act of desperation." 

He had $300 when he arrived in Los Angeles in 2003 and now his work commands tens of thousands of dollars. Today, at his large studio building in East Los Angeles, Houseago employs a staff of 20 and has five foundries in the US casting his sculptures in plaster or clay and into bronze. His work has been exhibited at the Whitney Biennial and at the Museum of Contemporary in LA, the Stedelijk in Amsterdam as well as at Venice's Palazzo Grassi and prestigious private galleries in London, Zurich, Brussels and New York. 

Back in Rome, Houseago moves quickly through the Gagosian's main gallery at the opening of his show and disappears through a large, swivelling door to celebrate the sale of several of his large works that night. The Roman crowd begins to disperse and wander out into the cool grey twilight. Outside the soaring columned entrance of the Gagosian, suited drivers lounge against their black Mercedes smoking, waiting for their charges to exit. 

Roman Figures is at the Gagosian Gallery from Tuesday June 4th until July 26th 2013 at Via Francesco Crispi 16, 00187 Rome Italy. The gallery is open: Monday–Friday 10.30am-7:00pm and by appointment. Telephone: +39 06 420 86498. Thomas Houseago's Striding Figure/Standing Figure is also concurrently running in Rome at the Galleria Borhese until July 7th 2013. 

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Artist Thomas Houseago working on a sculpture at his studio in Los Angeles. He said to the Financial Times: "I sometimes sit down with my daughter and she asks what I have been doing. I'll say 'I've been rolling around in mud for the whole day and it didn't work out.' You come to the end of the day and think: Jesus....this is a very odd way to make your living."

The opening of Thomas Houseago's new show Roman Figures at the Gagosian Gallery. Photograph by Ambrosio De Lauro

Thomas Houseago's show in Rome with the Reclining Figure (For Rome) at the centre of the great ovoid room. The unfinished side of the sculpture shows the rough plaster and iron armature inside. Photograph by Ambrosio De Lauro

Untitled (Walking Boy on a Plinth) 2013 Plaster, hemp, iron and redwood 208x76.2x81.3cm. Photograph by Ambrosio De Lauro

Roman Masks II 2013 Plaster, hemp and iron 75.5x58x29.7cm. Photograph by Ambrosio De Lauro 

Yet to be Titled (Hollow nose mask) 2013 Plaster, hemp and iron 67.6x53.8x21.7cm. Photograph by Ambrosio De Lauro 

The splendid fluted columns at the entrance to the Gagosian Gallery in Rome. Originally built in 1921 as a bank, the gallery was created in 2007 by architects Firouz Galdo and Caruso St John. Photograph by Ambrosio De Lauro

First Light 2006 Tuf-cal, hemp, iron, clay and graphite 154.8x111.7x147.3cm

Untitled (Red Man) 2008 Bronze 362.2x152.4x121.9cm

Striding Figure II (Ghost) 2012 Bronze and steel 472.4x200.7x304.8cm

Lying Figure (Mother Father) Bronze 2011 Ile de Vassiviere Centre International D'art Du Paysage

Hauser & Wirth exhibition I'll be your Sister exhibition of Houseago's works in Savile Row, London 2012 

 Untitled (Sprawling Octapus Man) 2009 Bronze 256x213x152cm

Standing Figure (Rome I) 2013 Plaster, hemp and iron 358.1x170.2x236.2cm. Photograph by Giorgio Benni. Copyright Thomas Houseago

Standing Figure (Roman Figure I) 2013 Plaster, hemp and iron 358.1x160x132.1cm. Photograph Giorgio Benni. Copyright Thomas Houseago 

Baby is Houseago's  three-metre tall sculpture that was exhibited at the Whiteny Biennial in 2010. Plaster, hemp, iron, charcoal and board

Design Interview: Ferruccio Laviani talks about the Tuareg Lamp

Launched this year at Milan's international furniture fair, the new Tuareg lamp was designed by Ferruccio Laviani for Italian lighting company Foscarini, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento

Contemporary art is one of the sources of inspiration for the prolific Laviani and the new lamp is designed to look like an installation that could be in a gallery. The Italian designer also created the dazzling Good Vibrations cabinet for Fratelli Boffi, another of his designs exhibited at the Salone del Mobile in April. 

When Michele De Lucchi was a key member of the influential Memphis group in the 1980s, Laviani went to work at his studio as a young designer. The Bourgie lamp Laviani later designed for Kartell became one of the iconic pieces in the neo-baroque movement. However, the new Tuareg lamp has a more anarchic form like a group of sticks flung together. The minimalist, sculptural look is created by seemingly random intersecting tubes. At more than two metres high, the Tuareg can be used as a reading, wall or floor lamp and has three lights that can be turned on and off individually.

The structure of the design is in three parts with branches each housing an LED light that can be adjusted 320 degrees. Colour also plays an important role in the design and defines the silhouette. The lamp is in two different hues, orange which is meant to suggest the anti-rust paints used to coat industrial piping and a contrasting matt black. 

Click play to see the interview with designer Ferruccio Laviani.