Civico Museo Parisi Valle

The Parisi-Valle museum of Maccagno: the "bridge-museum." The museum's name is derived from the architectural structure designed by Maurizio Sacripanti, which has particular symbolic value because it unites Upper Maccagno with Lower Maccagno, which, up to that point, were divided by the river Giona.

The idea of establishing such a futuristic museum in Maccagno, a small town in the province of Varese with a population of just 2,200 inhabitants, began to take shape in 1977. It was then that Giuseppe Vittorio Parisi, an artist born in Maccagno in 1915, returned to his home town for a vacation after having become a professor and operator in the field of visual research.

He was so fascinated by the atmosphere that he immediately began fleshing out an idea for a museum whose very structure would bear a cultural message. While the museum itself was completed in 1998, the "bridge-museum" project was awarded the National IN/ARCH Award as a directional, cultural and service-oriented building complex in 1992. A prestigious acknowledgement, awarded by a jury made up of architects Giuliano Gresleri, Sergio Lenci, Manfredi Nicoletti, Enzo Zacchiroli and Bruno Zevi. Some of its special features include the interweaving of the natural elements (water, air, sky, trees), and the way that they become part of the building's construction materials.

The Maccagno di Sacripanti project is linked to other famous works by the same artist, all of which bear witness to his propensity for mutation, continuous innovation, the unfinished, open creativity and his fluctuation between rationalism and organicism. The permanent collection, donated by Parisi-Valle, includes a total of 2,085 works, featuring pieces by Guttuso, Balla e Birolli.

The museum has continued to grow in recent years, acquiring works by Morandini, Tadini, Rognoni and Longaretti. Furthermore, it hosts four or five exhibitions every year, which place the spotlight upon the structure itself and expand the horizons of the permanent collection.