At Work With: Massimo Alvito, HomeSapiens
HomeSapiens is an English-language magazine published from Italy that explores our concepts of ‘Home’ from a philosophical rather than lifestyle point of view. As issue two is published, editor-in-chief Massimo Alvito looks ahead at his week.
Where are you today?
This morning I’m in Florence, Italy. I’ve lived here since 1996. This town has become my hometown, after long years of big-city life in Paris and Tokyo. It’s a place better known for its Renaissance persistence than for its contemporaneity. These pluses and minuses are evident in the brilliance of the daylight and the authenticity of manners, as seen through the ‘3Rs’: rough, real and rare. This applies to people’s behaviour as well as to food quality and cultural expression.
What can you see from the window?
The fence of four jasmine trees I planted on my terrace last July, ready to blossom. The fugue of shingled roofs of the old cloister where my place has been carved out. Terraces and balconies wrenched on the greenery. All this is mashed up with the reflected profile of my double-bass standing behind me and the black and white keyboard of my U3 piano.
How many emails are waiting in your inbox?
As usual, Monday morning emails are likely to exponentially grow from 8 to 10 am. So my Moka helps me take the time to let them reach an acceptable amount before pulling me down to the read/ answer/forward/trash alternative. The daylight saving time shift of Easter slowed the rhythm just for one day.
What's your favourite magazine this morning?
IL, the magazine of Il Sole 24 ore: a fresh glance on today’s amorphous Italian culture as narrated through the glass of a multifaceted team of good journalists and enlightened designers. It states the incidence of the ‘3Rs’ above at the larger scale of a country that is almost terminated. And this terrific certitude takes me to dive into The Travel Almanac, where I am allowed to reposition myself in a world that looks so faraway from here.
Why was there so much time between HomeSapiens #01 and #02?
Being independent means no certitude of producing the next issue. With the HomeSapiens project we had the strength of a vision, and the insanity of betting all on that. With issue #02 the project has proved to be strong enough to sustain the challenge of producing, publishing, distributing and selling a magazine with little compromises.
In countertrend with the digital grand bouffe, where all is feasible and accessible in seconds (and consumed in minutes), the gap between issue #01 and #02 has led HomeSapiens to grow. We were entrusted by Thomas Manss, who leads a design company based in London, Berlin, Rio and Cesena, who took the project under his aisles, providing time and affection to the making of issue #02. And things got better thereafter: Fedrigoni papers provided a precious support. More passionate contributors are coming forth with unexpected generosity.
Our pages are ad-free, not just because we’re carriers of some ideological handicap but for mere formal and ethical reasons. We don’t actually mean to achieve results by any means. We’ve rejected several offers that could have been substantial for the wellbeing of the magazine in terms of resources. But we wanted to be radically different from both the mainstream and the pseudo-independent scene. We simply couldn’t accept to trade HomeSapiens content and philosophy with trivial interior design ads. For being independent, really independent, demands more energy and a clearer scope in mind. You get less pressure from the market and its rules. You don’t run for numbers, you just walk and talk. And this is a precious gift to your reader. Because we don’t make HomeSapiens for just adding another title to the bookshelf.
HomeSapiens magazine is a series of 5+1 monographs centered on a thematic belly. The original editorial plan defines both the purpose and the attitude of the magazine. And this is really true and readable all along the pages of issue #02, where all has been done with the single efforts of just 2 persons, Adele who is the creative director and designer of the magazine, and myself. But we actually did all the rest as well. A lot of night work paid back by pure happiness when someone appreciates the outcome.
What is your personal highlight of the new issue?
My favorite in HomeSapiens #02 is the homage to Kobo Abe, which we honored with an abstract from his work ‘The Box Man’, an outstanding example of the Japanese diverse sensibility to the issues of dwelling. There, we may catch the perspective of a man who redefines his entire world from the inside of a cardboard box that becomes his inner shelf and his outer skin. Its counterpoint on issue #02 is Iain McKell’s fascinating New Gipsies story (above), another tale of what is the real meaning of being rooted elsewhere. We’ve conceived this issue – the disorder issue, as we call it – as a musical form, as Debussy's cello and piano sonata, a late composition of the French composer strongly influenced by the music of François Couperin. Here the thematic presence is recombined unconventionally with modes, monochords and pentatonic scales.
What was the last thing your creative director said to you?
When are you really over with the texts? Adele has the knowledge of how things written become visual heroes. She never compromises, although it won’t be easy.
What are you most looking forward to this week?
‘The Next Day’, David Bowie’s new creature.
What are you least looking forward to this week?
The Last Government, Italy’s new nightmare.
What will you be doing after this chat?
A minuetto.
This magazine is currently available from the magCulture shop.