Gaetano Pesce’s pastel-toned Pescetrullo has been sitting high on my design inspiration list.
Until I can make the trip myself, Vero — the Italian design studio born out of Puglia, the very region where Pesce’s work lives — gave us a window in.
Partnering with photographer Mattia Greghi, they brought their own objects into the space, letting Pesce’s playful architecture and Vero’s bold, sculptural forms talk to each other. A dialogue across generations, across mediums — perfectly in sync.
The Pescetrullo sits quietly in an olive grove, between Ostuni and Carovigno. Pesce, working with Gabriele Pimpini and Caterina Tognon, dropped something radical into a landscape that’s steeped in tradition. Conical-roofed “trulli” surround the home, while its pastel blocks stand as a symbol of disruption — soft yet unapologetically modern. At its heart are two mini-homes, celebratory portraits of Tognon and her partner, made of wood and clad in colored polyurethane foam — materials Pesce has experimented with since the 1970s.
“In this suspended, almost surreal atmosphere,” as Vero puts it, their pieces — colorful iron chairs, ceramic vessels, modular bookshelves — feel like they belong. The geometry holds its own against Pesce’s language, amplifying his tactile walls, the raw textures, the balance between nature and the artificial.
Scattered throughout the space are designs by Atelier Axo, Jamie Wolfond, Fredrik Paulsen — each commissioned by Vero to channel that lineage of Italian design, but in their own fresh way.
The result feels like time folding in on itself: Pesce’s radical past speaking directly to a new generation of makers who aren’t afraid to bend form into feeling.