We don’t see our authors in fashion magazines very often (or ever). So we were delighted to catch PPP author Franco La Cecla in Marie Claire last month, offering his take on the spread of luxury architecture and design through popular television.
Sex in the City, All Her Fault, The Beast in Me—when you tune in to the latest prestige TV offering these days, whether it’s from NBC, HBO, or Netflix, you’re likely to see some jawdroppingly luxe interiors. Journalist Lucia Antista noticed that she was often watching the setting more than the characters. “The narrative progresses, sometimes weakly or predictably, but it is supported by houses built to be watched,” she writes. “These environments don't simply accompany the story: they hold it together, filling in its gaps.”
To better understand this trend, she asked Franco La Cecla for his two cents. La Cecla is an anthropologist, architect, and prolific partner. He’s written two Prickly Paradigm pamphlets: 2007’s Pasta and Pizza and 2013’s The Culture of Ethics (co-written with Piero Zanini). But Antista was after his architectural (not anthropological or culinary) expertise.
They belong to highly successful professionals, who must have a certain type of home to demonstrate their status. If they were made to be lived in, they would be different: much more personalized, filled with the history of their inhabitants.
La Cecla doesn’t disappoint. With his typical versatility and insight, he connects these TV interiors to design, class, and labor. “They're not places to live in, but to show off. They belong to highly successful professionals, who must have a certain type of home to demonstrate their status,” he tells Antista. “If they were made to be lived in, they would be different: much more personalized, filled with the history of their inhabitants. They are homes for show, not for belonging."
“You could read it all as a crisis for the set designers: if they were important, the story should have more to do with the space in which it takes place. Instead, the screenwriters win—the important thing is to have a comfortable set on which to shoot the episodes,” he added.
The whole thing is a fun and thought-provoking read—much like the rest of La Cecla’s work. Pasta and Pizza traces Italian cuisine from from its Arab roots to its global dissemination, showing how food can be a profound rallying point across borders and cultures. The Culture of Ethics uses a wide-ranging set of references, from anthropological fieldwork to the Ten Commandments on film, to tackle big questions about moral imperatives. Both show why La Cecla is a vital voice in our contemporary discussions about aesthetics and culture. The readers of Marie Claire are lucky to have him.
