Maria Grazia Chiuri's First Project Post-Dior? The Restoration and Revival of a Roman Theater

Instead of channeling your resources into, say, a château in Bourgogne or a Parisian hôtel particulier, you chose to invest in something far less conventional—and far more generous: a cultural adventure. What sparked this vision? Where did the idea for the theater come from?
It originated from the fascination for a story—the story of Mimì Pecci Blunt. And also quite by chance. We came across these documents and sketches by Tomaso Buzzi, the eclectic architect who gave the theater its look. At the time, it was still part of the property owned by writer Gaia de Beaumont, Mimi Pecci Blunt's granddaughter. Buzzi's drawings were instantly captivating—not only for their beauty, but because they sparked Rachele's and my curiosity, drawing us into the remarkable world of this extraordinary woman. We discovered how she had moved through all the major artistic movements of the 20th century, maintaining personal relationships with a wide range of artists, whom she would invite to her homes in Paris, Villa Marlia, Rome, and New York. At a certain point in her life, she decided that she needed to have a dedicated space—a private theater. At the beginning we had no intention of buying it, let alone managing it. But we definitely continued to be interested in her, because her life touched on so many themes we were passionate about, and involved many artists we admired. She had an incredibly strong network of international artistic connections, which even intersected with the research we were doing in Paris for Dior's fashion shows.
So it was a personal interest of ours in the first place—almost like an archaeological dig into 20th-century culture and modernism, which, to be honest, I had never formally studied, but had always found fascinating. Later on, the opportunity arose to acquire the theater building itself, because the owners had decided to sell it. At the time, the theater was still active, with a regular drama program—in fact, my husband and I were subscribers. More than anything, we didn't want it to be repurposed for something else, for some sort of cheap retail space, and our original idea was actually to keep the existing managers in place.
But then COVID happened, and the management decided not to renew the lease. Negotiating with the family that owned the property was quite complicated—also because it wasn't just my decision. My husband, my son, and my daughter were involved too. We finally said: why don't we renovate it? Especially after we discovered Tomaso Buzzi's original beautiful sketches. We had fallen in love with them. That's when the adventure began. We spent five years on research and renovation. We were lucky that there was an architect, Fabio Tudisco, who was already working in the theater and was passionate about its history—we worked with him on the restoration. So it was a series of very particular events and coincidences—and above all, the idea of giving this place back to the city of Rome.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Vogue

2 hours ago

• Vogue

Maria McManus Resort 2026 Collection

Earlier this year, Maria McManus began experimenting with lace after coming across an Irish linen tablecloth her Aunt Bibi had made. 'I'm not a super floral crochet person, but I was like 'OK, this is meaningful,'' she said at the time, and three seasons later, it's been a thrill to see how that discovery begat a round of experimentation and pushing of the creative boundaries for the designer. 'I think it allowed me to think about sustainability differently, not being like, 'Oh my God, it has to be recycled,' but that there can be more things to the story.' she explained during an appointment at her Tribeca home which often doubles as a showroom. Artisanal French Dentelle de Calais-Caudry lace, which is 'certified and protected by the French government' continued to play a starring role in her resort collection, trimming slinky slip dresses made from her favorite Naia Renew fabric, and in delicate floral-patterned skirts. But its influence could also be felt elsewhere, as in the light-as-air cardigan knitted with three different floral patterns inspired by the lace itself, or even in the pair of organic cotton jeans with a 'shredded' detail on the waistband and pockets. They were still beautifully finished, and lined in her trademark grosgrain ribbon, but the layers had been left unfinished, fraying—a kind of proof of the handwork that goes into actually making them. But that doesn't mean McManus has stopped her tireless search for new materials and new sustainable technologies. This season she introduced a recycled polyester curly 'shearling,' used on a very cool—and glamorous—long statement coat; and a biodegradable nylon with a scuba-like feel that became extra-long leggings turned-wardrobe-essential thanks to the addition of belt loops(!). 'Most nylon comes from the fossil fuel industry—specifically coal—and can take anywhere from a hundred to a thousand years if not longer to biodegrade,' she explained. 'This is made from a fruit polymer, so it reacts more like a paper or a cotton, and will biodegrade in five years in an industrial landfill. The mill was started by this woman named Regina and she is amazing, everything she does is sustainable in some way.'

Washington Post

3 hours ago

• Washington Post

‘The Berlin Diaries' is a twisting and resonant search for lost family

Playwright Andrea Stolowitz is a central character in her own 'The Berlin Diaries.' She is played by Dina Thomas in a delicately moving production at D.C.'s Theater J — except when she's played by actor Lawrence Redmond, who also inhabits the long-dead grandfather whose inherited journals set the show's affairs in motion. Except when Redmond is stepping into the role of the playwright's Uncle David. Or one of a dozen other characters, based everywhere from Brazil to South Africa to New York to the Pacific Northwest. With me? Fret not: If the play's structural quirkiness initially feels adventurous to the point of mild madness, it quickly reveals a method, even as its novelty settles into something like normalcy. In fact the dialogue-juggling — in which the two actors often divide a thought mid-phrase while inhabiting the same character — deftly suggests the sort of wait-who-was-that? conundrums that any genealogist grappling with a knotty ancestral puzzle might get tangled in. For instance, I bear the same name as both my father and my grandfather, and there's another handful perched a few generations back in the family tree. This means that 'No, the Thomas who was killed when a branch fell on him in 1762 was a farmer; his son Thomas was the Presbyterian minister,' is the kind of thing I find myself clarifying mid-story, as if anyone other than a desperate family-history nerd could possibly follow. One intriguing dynamic with 'Berlin Diaries' is precisely that Andrea Stolowitz, or at least the character with her name, doesn't seem that sort of nerd at all. She's a mildly jaded playwright and teaching artist whose family isn't all that large or all that close, and who's not particularly interested in the diary her mother has been saving all this time. Yes, they're Jewish, and yes, they emigrated from Germany — but as Uncle David shrugs, 'Everyone made it here alive. … There's nothing to find out.' Unconvinced, but also under-inspired, and entirely uncertain what she's actually looking for, Andrea does what teaching artists do when confronted with things like old diaries: She writes a grant proposal and takes off for Europe. Unsurprisingly, she'll uncover rather more than Uncle David's shrug suggests, and in its clean 90 minutes 'Berlin Diaries' chronicles developments as concrete as confusion about a street address and as esoteric as the singular frisson that comes with stumbling across a headstone and knowing that a faded name on a dusty page really lived and died in this actual place, at that actual time. And its protagonist will confront the reality that even now, even after decades of diligent documentation, even given the famously meticulous recordkeeping that accompanied the Holocaust, it's possible for people — for whole swaths of whole families — simply to be verschollen, lost. Theater J's handsome production, steered with a light touch and admirable clarity by director Elizabeth Dinkova, deploys warm woods (in a set by Sarah Beth Hall) and plenty of papers (props are from Pamela Weiner), along with one of the most quietly lyrical visual vocabularies I've seen in a theater lately. (Colin K. Bills is responsible for the lighting, and Deja Collins the subtle and exquisite suite of projections.) Redmond and Thomas navigate a tricky script with the ease of veterans and a wry, low-key charm that helps find an appropriate unifying tone for a narrative that involves the soberest of considerations — but also at least one anatomical joke and (rather boldly) the employment of mild sarcasm in the vicinity of the words 'never forget.' And Stolowitz manages, without belaboring or dwelling on grim specifics, to convey the quiet horror of discovering the name of a lost relative in the same moment you realizing that that person's story is largely and irremediably lost. 'He who forgets what he cannot change is happy,' muses Andrea at one point, echoing a line from her grandfather's journal, though it's not clear she can bring herself to agree. 'The Berlin Diaries' will resonate, and vividly, with audiences who caught Tom Stoppard's similarly aching family chronicle 'Leopoldstadt' at the Shakespeare Theatre Company late last year – and I should imagine with any member of a Jewish American generation whose parents and grandparents simply couldn't bear to pass on the stories of the lost. The Berlin Diaries, through June 29 at Theater J. About 90 minutes without intermission.

Bloomberg

3 hours ago

• Bloomberg

How Long Before We Get a $6 Trillion Sports Team?

This week we drop in on the Lakers deal, get an update from our reporter in Cannes about where all the sports marketing money is going, and say something nice about AI for once. Plus we start our weekly Club World Cup scorecard. Also check out the latest episode of the Deal, where Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly sit with David Blitzer, co-founder of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, to discuss how his teams use data and analytics.