From June 17th to September 3rd, 2023, the exhibition "The Fabulous 1960s in Maremma, in the Footsteps of the Renowned Architect Ico Parisi" took place at the Cultural Center of the Clarisse in Grosseto. The exhibition was contextualized through three symbolic locations: two hotels designed by the great architect and a church, as well as splendid clothing created by fashion designers who left their mark on Italian fashion in the 1960s.
The exhibition was promoted as part of the exhibition program of the CR Firenze Foundation and the Uffizi Galleries, within their respective projects "Small Great Museums" and "Scattered Uffizi."
It was a dialogue between artistic expressions, such as fashion, costumes, and design. An exhibition that offered an unusual perspective on Maremma, not the Maremma of Dante or the Maremma of the Medici reforms, but the Maremma of the post-World War II economic boom, of beach trips and vacations, and of passing celebrities along the Via Aurelia.
Through the figure of the renowned architect Ico Parisi and the hotels he designed in 1960, namely the Lorena Hotel located in Grosseto's Station Square and the Corte dei Butteri Hotel in the Osa area, the story unfolds of Italian excellence and the prolific tourism that characterized those years. This was the result of the dynamism and effervescence of society in the Lower Tuscany region in the post-World War II era.
Bernini Gallery contributed to the exhibition narrative by donating materials from the historical Bernini archive. This is because the interior setup of the Lorena Hotel were entirely created by Bernini based on the design by Ico Parisi. We provide an account of this with some magnificent photos from that era taken by Studio Casali.
These photos highlight both Parisi's great creativity in furnishing the hotel in accordance with the most contemporary Italian design taste and Bernini's craftsmanship, which was so highly regarded that it was chosen by the most famous Italian architects. /
The Lorena Armchair designed by Ico Parisi for the Lorena Hotel in 1960, which later became part of Cassina's production.
Armchair 814 by Ico Parisi, produced by Cassina in the 1950s.