When Massimo Minale moved from the East End of London to Stockholm, he brought his industrial aesthetic with him. The architect and founder of hardware brand Buster & Punch would like to say that he has “softened” his style to suit the Scandi taste for natural textures and folkish weaves. But that would be an untruth. Everything in his lakeside family home – the swathes of steel or the glazed screens which light the open-plan spaces – reminds him of his first loft apartment.
Viewings for the house, set on Lake Mälaren (one Sweden’s largest expanses of fresh water), had finished by the time Minale and his wife, Jessica, turned up. So they bought it without stepping inside. The 1950s “white sugar cube” typified the Funkis style of architecture, Sweden’s answer to the Bauhaus. But it was in such a “crappy state” that they initially intended to knock it down and start from scratch. Because of its location, the planners vetoed the idea.
