San Francisco-based design studio Kallos Turin has crafted a wine cellar and private tasting room at Casa Cavia in Buenos Aires.
Facing Alemania Square in the city’s Palermo Chico district, Casa Cavia is a historic house designed by architect Alejandro Christophersen in 1929.
Celebrating Casa Cavia’s history and evolution
In 2014, Kallos Turin was commissioned to renovate the building to include a café, perfumery, flower shop, courtyard garden, and publishing offices. Over the past decade, under the leadership of the property’s creative director, Lupe Garcia, Casa Cavia has evolved to become a cultural destination, with Kallos Turin updating the spaces to evolve alongside her vision.
As a celebration of Casa Cavia’s 10th anniversary, Garcia saw an opportunity to highlight the family’s long history with wine collecting and wine making. The result is a first-floor wine cellar and private tasting room called El Privado.
Inside the intimate wine cellar
Rendered in dark burgundy and encased in wine bottles, the cellar is a more intimate and private setting. A custom central table, that seats 10, is constructed in a salmon-colored resin, paired with chairs made by local designer Ries Estudio.
The El Privado tasting room
By contrast, El Privado is a larger, lighter space filled with shelving and books, designed to encourage longer meals and conversations. Here, the resin table is sheathed in a burgundy hue to connect with the walls in the adjacent cellar.
“When you work on a building of this caliber, you learn from its original architect and you hope to take some of what you learned into your next projects,” says Stephania Kallos, cofounder of Kallos Turin. “We were also inspired by the idea of this small, graceful building having held its place on a block that has otherwise been completely developed—in its small elegant way, it is a very powerful force on the street. We think this is a lovely metaphor for the strength of the programming the house now contains.”
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