Once Dostoevsky wrote that “small things have their importance: it is always the little things that we lose”. We do not know what that “lost” meaning had, but we like to think that it means the beginning of a journey: every little thing represents a flight of imagination that wanders aimlessly where it is pleasant to get lost in search of new stories. Ub has exactly that power. Through its unusual vintage and modern objects you will lose in a world of small (and large) things that have drifted, been found and then told.
In the shadow of Brunelleschi’s dome you will find the wrought-iron and glass display case that is a prelude to the fantastic world of Ubaldo Pierantoni, the troubadour owner of the most unspeakable of objects and design shops. Crossing the threshold of Via dei Conti 4r you enter a world made of suspended time in which the ages mix and give life to a crystallized atmosphere in a pleasant memory. We pass from more airy rooms with peeling walls and warm tones, we cross small smoky and equally fascinating little niches and coridoi, we arrive at the wonderful internal courtyard to finally arrive at a room packed with rolls of decorative paper that the store has inherited from the archive of a historical Florentine exercise.
Ubaldo personally selects every object that you will find in here and it is thanks to his skillful eye that everything, extrapolated from its original context, harmonizes perfectly as a whole, giving life to an original, imaginative and ironic style. You’ll find Sheffield vanity mirrors, neon signs, juke boxes, zinc chests of drawers, dolls, zinc chests of drawers, wall clocks, bakelite radios and everything you wanted to discover in the grandparents’ attic. Ub is a bit like rediscovering the charm of forgotten objects to return them to new life, always in the sign of design and the beauty of yesteryear that never goes out of style.