Civico Museo Parisi - Valle

About the museum

The idea for the museum took shape in 1977, when the artist Giuseppe Vittorio Parisi, born in Maccagno in 1915 and active as a teacher and visual researcher, thought during a holiday on Lake Maggiore of founding an art centre in the town. With the consent of his wife Wanda Valle, he offered the Comune his collection of more than two thousand works, largely his own but including a core of 20th-century Italian art. In 1979, after the donation, the town council approved the creation of the cultural centre “Fondazione Parisi-Valle”.

The building is a concrete “bridge-museum” spanning the Giona river shortly before it flows into the lake. The preliminary design is by Maurizio Sacripanti; the full design was commissioned on 13 November 1979, work began in 1981 and was completed in 1998 with the support of the Province of Varese. In 1992 the building received the national IN/ARCH prize. Inside, the exhibition rooms and meeting spaces form a labyrinth-like route, with terraces overlooking the lake.

The Parisi Valle donation comprises 2,085 works (915 graphic works, 439 two-dimensional works and 325 three-dimensional works) and more than four hundred antiquities and coins. It documents Italian art from the 1930s to the 1980s, from the pioneers of the avant-garde to lesser-known authors, with metaphysical, surrealist, geometric, neoplastic and rational-concrete idioms. Names include Giacomo Balla, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico, Renato Guttuso, Victor Vasarely, François Morellet and Arnaldo Pomodoro. Acquisitions between 2006 and 2011 expanded the holdings with artists such as Marcello Morandini, Ugo Nespolo and Emilio Tadini.

Highlights

• Parisi Valle donation with more than 2,000 works of 20th-century Italian art
• Works by Balla, Picasso, de Chirico, Guttuso, Vasarely and Pomodoro
• “Bridge-museum” over the Giona river, designed by Maurizio Sacripanti
• Terraces with views of Lake Maggiore
• Free admission

Permanent exhibition

• La donazione Parisi Valle – Graphic, painted and sculpted works of Italian art from the 1930s to the 1980s, the historic core of the civic collection.

Operated by

Comune di Maccagno con Pino e Veddasca

Visitors per year

approx. 6,795

Admission & discounts

Admission is free.

Free admission.

Accessibility

• Wheelchair accessible
• Elevator: no information
• Accessible restroom: no information
• Accessible parking: no information
• Service dogs welcome: no information
• Tactile models & exhibits: no information
• Sign language tours: no information
• Easy-to-read materials: no information
• Audio description: no information

The museum was designed without architectural barriers: wide ramps on all sides and an obstacle-free exhibition floor. Interior spaces, facilities, permanent and temporary rooms and external terraces are accessible by wheelchair. The website refers in particular to mobility impairment.

Kids & families

The museum hasn’t published any information on this.

Getting there & parking

By car from Milan: Autostrada dei Laghi (A26) towards Varese–Alessandria, exit Vergiate, then the Vergiate–Besozzo superstrada towards Luino and the road northwards along the shore of Lake Maggiore. From Switzerland you can arrive via the Zenna/Dirinella border crossing along the lake, or via the Fornasette border crossing through Luino.

Amenities & dining

The museum hasn’t published any information on this.

Events & venue rental

The museum hasn’t published any information on this.