At 138 Via Cristallini, Atelier Inès Arts & Suites combines a craft workshop with an art hotel, a landmark for the neighborhood. Inès Sellami and Vincenzo Oste introduce to the value of this part of Naples
Atelier Inès Arts & Suites in Via Cristallini, Rione Sanità, Naples
Naples’ Rione Sanità was once the hub of artisans: glove makers, silk workers, glass craftsmen, among others. The glass masters were not only in Murano, or Castellammare di Stabia, where King Charles III had established a coastline property, where there was much finer sand than in Venice, used to make crystals.
They were also known for their skills in the Sanità district, in a street named after their work: via Cristallini. They moved here en masse and opened their workshops. When you walk down this street today, you have to imagine the noises of the past, the sound of hammers beating, the fumes produced by the working of glass and crystal.
At 138 Via Cristallini, you will now find Atelier Inès Arts & Suites, a multi-purpose place that combines a craft workshop with an art hotel. A landmark for the neighborhood. A testimony to the value of this vibrant part of Naples.
Inès Sellami and Vincenzo Oste introduce Atelier Inès Arts & Suites
Passing through the first gate, one enters a courtyard, which leads to another gate. The stairs open to the visitor and invite one in. «Until 1930, this whole area was an open-air cinema-theater», Vincenzo Oste starts recounting, jewelry designer and artist, founder and co-owner who animates the workshop on the ground floor of Atelier Inès Arts & Suites.
Inès is Inès Sellami, Tunisian jewelry designer and art lover, Vincenzo’s wife, the smiling and welcoming manager of the hotel, whose care reverberates in every room of the building. «This gate, so welcoming with the staircase that embraces, served the cinema-theater. There was the stage, here the gallery, then the first row, and the gallery. In that terrace people would enter, go up those stairs there on the left, sit up here and watch the show».
Vincenzo Oste: a family plot from Naples to America and back to Naples
The building where Vincenzo Oste and Inès Sellami welcome us was originally built by Vincenzo’s great-grandfather in 1947. Since then it has been the home of the Oste family. «Until recently, the best craftsmen in Naples were located here. In the same building, a mini factory of five people was created, each specializing in the production of one part of the product. With the regulations and decentralization from the historical centers, they had to move to the suburbs to the most suitable sheds and places, causing an impoverishment of this area».
Vincenzo’s great-grandfather, an emigrant to America who later returned to Naples, managed to buy the land. «He had moved to the United States. He was a carpenter in Brooklyn, quite successful. With his accumulated wealth he was able to buy this land». On the ground floor, four high wooden gates mark the building. «His son Vincenzo – that is, my grandfather – set up a timber sales business. They built the building around these four gates that his great-grandfather had brought back from America – it is pitch pine wood, full of resins».
Annibale Oste, artist and sculptor, poet
The gates on the ground floor of Atelier Inès Arts & Suites are high, because they were meant to hold timber. «They were full of wood in 1955. They sold them by the ton, because the best wood craftsmen were here. Then in 1980 the neighborhood became depopulated of craftsmen: my parents moved to the suburbs to sell wood. My father settled here, with his art studio».
Annibale Oste, artist and sculptor, poet, has experimented with new and traditional materials, mixing craft and industrial techniques. The pieces of art created in the workshop are now hosted in international galleries, in the homes of private collectors, and within the walls of Atelier Inès Arts & Suites, in common areas and suites.
«My father was contemporary. My vision is more of a jeweler. I go into a little more detail because I like to make the detail even crazier. Dad also took great care of detail, but he didn’t exaggerate it».
Atelier Inès Arts & Suites: the laboratory
«Everything you see here is a small part of our prototyping. Each element serves a purpose – from a mirror, to candelabra, to a bathroom accessory. Then they are transformed into metal through a casting process that is not done here because it is a bit complex, but it is done not far from here. Then when the objects are returned, they are finished, then welding, finishing, everything is done in this space, the patinas are done here, the various things are assembled here. This workshop works for the small and the large. For the private or hotel commission or nature, so 360 degrees».
Atelier Inès Arts & Suites Naples, where the hill of Capodimonte begins
Atelier Inès Arts & Suites is a corner of peace in a neighborhood full of movement and energy. Energy also comes from the earth.
«More than 2,000 years ago, the Greeks who populated Naples made their cemeteries here, their burial chambers, and so down here in the depths is full of Greek hypogea. Right now we are walking on Greek hypogea so there is incredible energy. It is a cathartic place, with a strong connection to the truth of nature: look at the wealth of greenery. This is where the hill of Capodimonte begins and several small roads climb up to the actual hill, Bosco di Capodimonte».
«We were not born rich: we imagined, built, conquered, and still have a lot to do. We have achieved a few goals, considering that 10% of our customers are also buyers of our art objects. The workshop works for Atelier Inès and Atelier Inès works for the workshop».
Atelier Inès Arts & Suites, detail interiors
Inside, elements of the original structure have been recovered: the 1950s floors and the staircase at the entrance testify to the careful restoration work. In the void of the stairwell hangs a work of art symbolizing the floating in the void of the human being: a leap into the unknown, between fear and hope.
Every component of the furniture is a work of art – tables, furniture, mirrors, lamps, vases, handles. Even the table where breakfast is served is set with objects produced in the workshop: the centerpiece, the underplate, the jeweled cutlery, the napkin ring – Giorgio Armani bought it for his house in Panarea. The chairs were bought at auction at Poltronova, by Gio Ponti. All the design that is not of the atelier’s production is all by Gio Ponti.
Everything is for sale. There is no television. «You just need to rest when you come to your room, after visiting Naples and its surroundings. With our numbers, among the many customers one person may have said: but there is no television? Naples is a show».
Vincenzo Oste
Vincenzo Oste trained as an artisan designer, looking to his father as a reference. In 2004, Vincenzo graduated in jewelry and began to divide his time between the family business and his own idea of art and design, launching his brand in Italy and abroad.
In 2010, Annibale passed away and Vincenzo took over his father’s art studio together with his sister Mariasole, Annibale’s eldest daughter, who grew up breathing the air of art as a child and who, after graduating from art school, immediately focused her efforts on the workshop alongside her father and his wife Inès, a Tunisian jewelry designer and art lover. In 2017, Vincenzo and Inès decided to create – an art living space experience where guests can breathe, feel and admire art.
Vincenzo Oste’s works are on display at the Atelier Inès Arts & Suites, 138 via Cristallini, Naples;
and inside the gallery Dilmos Milano, Via S. Marco, 1, Milan.
Matteo Mammoli
