The Architect as Storyteller

Architecture, too, had its Relotius. Antonino Cardillo presented renderings as actual buildings, thus deceiving the professional press. As a master of staging, he continues to captivate the industry to this day.

How does one manage to win the most prestigious German award for reportage? An overactive imagination and a keen sense of what editors expect can be helpful. This was recently demonstrated in the case of the reporter Claas Relotius, who for years misled editorial teams, juries, and the public with, quite literally, fairy-tale-like foreign reports. His actions not only plunged the Hamburg news magazine Der Spiegel into the deepest crisis in its history,⁠^[1] but also triggered a veritable earthquake in the media landscape.

And how does one make it onto Wallpaper* magazine’s list of the 30 most important young architects worldwide? Proficiency in Photoshop can be advantageous. This is evidenced by the story of Antonino Cardillo, who found his own unique way to draw public attention to himself and his designs. The ambitious but unknown Italian architect attached location details to photorealistic renderings of extravagant private villas, leading editors and the public to believe they were real buildings.

Celebrated as an exceptional talent by the professional world for some time, his deception was only uncovered when an employee of the Vienna city magazine Falter took the trouble to search for the real houses. In 2012, the news magazine Der Spiegel followed up and sent a reporter to Rome for a revealing interview⁠^[2] with the Felix Krull of the design industry.

When asked why magazines had the impression that his houses actually existed, Cardillo confessed at his kitchen table: “Magazines want to publish projects that have been realised. I still wanted to show how I imagine houses.” He did not feel particularly guilty about it. “Why should an idea be lost just because there is no client?”

He saw his work, as quoted in Der Spiegel, as a kind of fairy tale. “It is not important that things actually happened. What matters is bringing an idea into the world. And it worked; I am now receiving commissions.”

Apart from the unintended irony that Der Spiegel appears in both impostor stories, once as the accuser and once as the accused, they differ fundamentally, even though in both cases the deception destroyed trust. This reveals something about the significance of truth in the realm of design. While a case of deception in journalism, which invents stories about social reality, can shock an entire industry, the ‘Cardillo case’, the deception in architecture that presented images as built reality, remained largely without consequences, aside from a few critical articles.

Although Cardillo continues to lead the life of a reclusive eccentric—who, as the magazine Dear discovered in 2017, likes to retreat to his “office,” a weathered ruin somewhere on the Sicilian beach for contemplation—his projects still receive unbroken international attention. His renderings, skilfully executed, have not only garnered attention for his aesthetic visions but also earned him a kind of respect. Respect, akin to that accorded to the primal force of an artist who, in the name of art, claims the right to break existing rules and transcend boundaries.

Many secretly rejoiced for the resourceful outsider who managed to outwit the established attention regime. This was also achieved because he immediately followed up with successful works. The House of Dust, which Cardillo began designing in 2012, the year of his exposure, near the Villa Borghese in Rome, was among the 50 works representing the history of Italian interior architecture at the 21st Milan Triennale. Some architects, commented curator Beppe Finessi on this decision, “sweep away all established practices in a magical way.”

The Italian, with his special knack for historical references and dramatic atmospheric accents, has meticulously documented his controversial renderings, as well as the critical articles from that time, on his website.⁠^[3] He no longer wishes to comment on them, as he stated when asked. Antonino Cardillo also did not consent to the publication of his images in this article. As a series of works titled ‘Imagined Houses’, the illusionary works from back then have now achieved a kind of cult status, even engaging design theory under the term ‘digital promise of reality’,⁠^[4] a wonderfully dazzling phrase that undoubtedly sounds much better than the ugly words deception, imposture, or fake.

When it comes to flagship stores in London or the interior design of stylish venues like the Off Club in Rome, which opened in 2017, Cardillo is a sought-after man today. Even Wallpaper* had to report on him, and in their favourable review of the Off Club, they even referred to Cardillo as a “long-time collaborator”.⁠^[5] A gesture that nonchalantly dismisses the deception of the past as insignificant, in a way that one can hardly imagine in the case of Relotius, at least not yet.