Gardens, Pois and merry-go-round

The amazing story of the Pois brothers and their vegetable garden, ceramics and restaurant

To enter the garden-house in via Cola di Rienzo 8 you have to ring, but after that you are welcomed as a friend, a relative, a precious lover who hasn't been around for a long time. When you cross the gate where Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs welcome you smiling, you understand that this is also a bit like a home to you.

Mi casa es tu casa. And that place is made to live there, to live well because beauty is good for the heart. In the garden you can sit and enjoy a coffee, have lunch, as we have thought of everything for you. Entering Nonostante Marras you encounter the Oltremare Sofa made by Antonio Marras with Saba. 

This time, the theme is "BE SPECIAL".

The backdrop carries the signs of time, the patches are embroideries, runs and chases of petals and thin stems.

“Special” is Antonio's handcrafted and intricate wild rose branch design. Additionally, there are precious patches, embroidery and interventions of color to create a new world. From the Wall & Decò wallpaper, ceramics made with the Colì family from Cutrufiano and the wall lampshades (by Nicola Pietrobelli - Paralumè) to the true king of the room, the Oltremare Sofa, an armchair and the large pouf.

Let’s start in order:

Main characters:
Antonio Marras and Circolo Marras: principal Author.
Antonella Rana and the Rana Family restaurant; the Bistrò.

Supporting cast:
Ceramics,: Giuseppe Colì and F.lli Colì, Cutrufiano, Puglia
Lampshades: Nicola Pietrobelli - Parlumè Milano
Sofa: Saba
Wallpaper: Wall&Decò
Rug: Amini acb.
Plants: Filippo Marsigli
Vegetable garden: L’Orto di Jack
Flowers: Tonino flower
Table textiles: Eria


The paths progresses as follows:
Lampshades in the fabrics of the collection, patched, printed, embroidered, devoured, hand drawn and inlaid in lace. And ceramics of the Pois Brothers to set up laid tables.
Handmade ceramics, one different from the others, including plates, trays, bowls, fruit holders, food holders, glasses, pumas, object holders and vases of all sizes and decorations.
Under the glass cases we have the Concordia, a good omen for the guests.
On the walls lampshades and embroidered Sardinian baskets. Finally, huge ornamental plants.
Antonio Marras at Milano Design Week
Once upon a time, there was a vegetable garden where before there was a garden and where before there was a forest. We are talking about the garden of the Pois brothers, in via Cola di Rienzo 8, between the Solari park and the Muccioli garden.
The brothers Luchino, Teresina and Gennarino Pois had a special passion for the vegetable garden, which is strange for children who generally prefer games to vegetables, candy and cereals and ice cream to vegetables.
But strange, these guys, they always have been. Their passion for polka dots, for dots, for circular signs, for circles, to dots themselves (a dot always has to be involved ...) was so strong that someone had even talked to them about the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, with whom they shared the fixation for polka dots and pumpkins.

For the Pois brothers, the step from polka dots to vegetables was short and sudden but all-encompassing, as only a Stendhal syndrome or a coup du foudre can be.
One day, they stumbled upon L’Orto di Jack, his vegetable garden, by chance, as always the best things happen, and ever since then cherry tomatoes, peas, pumpkins, radishes, onions, aubergines, cabbages, carrots, artichokes and courgettes, all kinds of roundness, they became a source of pleasure for the children and they surrounded themselves with them everywhere. Not to mention the variety of colors that plants offer: not only the black and white of the polka dots but colors, shades, tone sur tone and gradations. From periwinkle to purple, from orange to brick, from yellow to lime, from red to carmine, from sage green to military green.
The Pois parents, who would always do anything for their children, after having reproduced the official portraits in all the flat surfaces existing in the literature of furnishing ceramics and mise en place, proceeded to cover a further version of plates, coffee sets, jugs, glasses and serving plates and ships loaded with vegetables!
And the boys, who are always up to something, got the Rana Family involved, the family that has made an art out of ravioli, in order to associate flavors and aromas with shapes and colors.
Ravioli is a traditional and precious container, an oyster shell that hides a pearl for taste and joy for the eyes. All the senses are involved, and so the Pois family and the Rana family created a Bistro and an unusual restaurant to satisfy curious, cosmopolitan and beauty lovers.

And that's not all: the Brothers Pois, never satisfied, will host you somewhere else, a place, an island where you can stop.
Imagine a house with sofas and carpets, walls painted and set up like a menagerie, magazines and books everywhere. People sitting on the ground amid voices, noises and laughter, where anyone can take a book or study a picture, embroider, draw, photograph, write, rummaging through scraps of fabric.
Imagine a courtyard with an olive tree in the middle, then roses, hydrangeas, peonies, lilies, lilies and a lilac and intoxicating wisteria. An overbearing ivy, tables, chairs, an iron warrior who acts as a guarantor and cages and greenery, lots of greenery, everywhere.
Imagine the guests, daring and nonconformists who encounter chairs, ceramics and hands jammed together to become something else: a ring!



RING-A-RING-A-ROSIES
A POCKET FULL OF POSIES
A TISSUE, A TISSUE
WE ALL FALL DOWN
Antonio Marras at Milano Design Week