29-05-2025
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.
