A new vision: Gucci Garden, Palazzo della Mercanzia, Florence
The House debuts the Gucci Garden inside the historic Palazzo della Mercanzia, which housed the Gucci Museo. Share
Conceived by creative director Alessandro Michele, the newly designed space features a store with one-of-a-kind items, the Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura— a restaurant by the infamous chef—and the Gucci Garden Galleria exhibition rooms curated by critic Maria Luisa Frisa. Divided into a series of themed rooms, the Gucci Garden Galleria narrates the House’s new vision while celebrating the archives including old advertising campaigns, artisans’ images, retro objects.
The journey inside the exhibition space that spans across two floors begins inside ‘Guccification’, the room where the Double G motif features in many forms up until its transgressive state created by artist Trouble Andrew for Gucci Ghost and the latest ways of writing the House’s name—Guccy, Guccify and Guccification—found by Alessandro Michele through tags on Instagram. ‘Paraphernalia’ is a room dedicated to signature codes and symbols that define Gucci’s identity while ‘Cosmorama’ reveals the historical jet-set customer of Gucci and the evolution of the Crest.
The gallery continues on the second floor with ‘De Rerum Natura’, two rooms that recall natural history museums and explore Alessandro Michele’s curiosity for animals and gardens—a vital part of the new Gucci narrative. The sensory journey ends with ‘Ephemera’, an environment where the gaze of the present composes landscapes of objects, videos and memorabilia that retrace the history of the House. The Gucci Garden Galleria also includes a small, red-velvet tented cinema auditorium, featuring a preview of Zeus Machine/Phoenix, a short film by the ZAPRUDER filmmakersgroup.
The Gucci Eye is the designated symbol of the Gucci Garden, a hypnotic territory that alters the state of consciousness and perception. A place full of magnetism, dispersed in the gallery rooms, Osteria da Massimo Bottura—the new restaurant by the three-Michelin-star chef and the boutique. The visitor can choose whether to let themselves go inside, drifting around, or look carefully and take in the surrounds.
