Luisa Spagnoli finances the restoration of Perugina's first headquarters
The project, financed by the company, rehabilitates the premises where the founder of the fashion brand opened her confectionery and chocolate workshop in 1907
2' min read
2' min read
In the heart of the city of Perugia, where Luisa Spagnoli founded 'Perugina' in 1907, the fashion company that today bears the entrepreneur's name will finance the re-functioning and restoration of the spaces from which the workshop took its first steps. The spaces, now unused, are, as then, the property of the Ansidei family, which has agreed to lease them in favour of the realisation of a true experiential hub directly connected to the City of Chocolate.
"We enthusiastically accepted - declares Nicoletta Spagnoli, managing director and creative director of Luisa Spagnoli Spa, as well as great-granddaughter of Luisa Spagnoli - the invitation of Eugenio Guarducci, artistic director of the City of Chocolate, to support this important project, aimed at finally giving back to the citizens and tourists of our beloved Perugia a historical memory to which our family is particularly attached. Luisa and Annibale Spagnoli, but also all those who worked in these spaces in the last century, deserved this intervention, ready to leverage the contents of material culture that have marked the economic and social history of the territory"..
The educational centre will be called LAB, in homage to Luisa and Annibale Spagnoli who identified this historic building in the centre of Perugia as their starting point for what became, in the space of a few years, an important venture in the confectionary world, both national and international. After launching and starting up the business, around 1928 Luisa Spagnoli also began to invest in the textile sector, laying the foundations for the company now run by Nicoletta Spagnoli together with her son Nicola Barbarani.
The project includes conservative restoration work for the premises in Via Alessi, where a number of industrial archaeology artefacts are located, and which will finally be accessible and visitable, no longer occasionally, but throughout the year. The adjoining premises in Via Angusta, also used as the headquarters of the first Perugina settlement, will instead be reorganised to allow the organisation of master classes, guided tastings, the Cacao Ceremony, book presentations and conferences. A small chocolate and pastry workshop will also be set up inside them.
Work on the construction of LAB will begin after the Easter holidays, thanks also to the invaluable contribution of Abacus, the engineering company that played a leading role, as a subscriber, in the recent crowdfunding promoted by Destinazione Cioccolato Srl. The opening of LAB will therefore be simultaneous with that of the Chocolate City, scheduled for the second half of 2025. (Ch.B.)
