FIESOLE, Florence, Italy – The Accademia del Caffè Espresso opens its doors to the international coffee press in one of Tuscany’s most treasured locations: Fiesole (Pian di San Bartolo), Florence.
This is the first of a series of events designed to introduce the project to distinct local and foreign target groups.
The Accademia del Caffè stems from La Marzocco’s iconic industrial building, which was once home to the company’s factory from 1959 to 2009; the so-called “Officina” or Workshop, was managed by the company’s founding fathers, Giuseppe and Bruno Bambi, and then by Piero, alongside a small group of brilliant craftsmen.
For the very first Preview, visitors will be guided through an interactivee tour to experience:
- The presentation of the Accademia Del Caffè Espresso project
- A visit round the facility, an architectural icon that is preserved today by the Belle Arti.
- The vernissage of the first temporary exhibit, “Genius Loci”
- Light lunch & networking on the open view terrace
- Meet and greet with the Accademia team
From the Workshop to the Accademia
For several decades, the Accademia was the manufacturing headquarters of La Marzocco (referred to as the Workshop).
Today it flourishes under a new format, but the “spirit of the place” (“genius loci” in Latin) is very much alive… only less visibly, less tangibly.
Through this brief introductive narrative, we aim to bring the “human fabric”, inevitably linked to the historical and social ones, to light, all which contributed to these workspaces.
This story begins with the emotions and memories of those who spent a significant amount of time within these walls, recalling their workstations.
They take us on a voyage amid memories that are still vivid, made of images, conversations, relationships, rays of light and the scent of metal, within a place where so many individuals contributed over the years to building the La Marzocco that we know today.
Manifesto
The Accademia del Caffè Espresso is a center for the advancement and comprehension of the culture of espresso coffee.
The Accademia’s goal is to advance the espresso coffee sector, increase knowledge, competence and responsibility deriving from the meeting of cultures, expertise and skilled work which we encounter each day while sipping our coffee.
The Accademia del Caffè Espresso comes into being as an open and inclusive platform, aimed at facilitating meetings, exchanging information and encouraging professional as well as personal growth, where different points of view can converge and, through shared values, cultivate the future of coffee.
Coffee especially is a deeply attractive theme, its understanding is imperative also to face the changes we are witnessing: climate and economic changes can be addressed by attenuating both the physical and cultural distances of those who love and breathe coffee, a resource for those who cultivate, work with or consume it.
The desire is to diminish the distance between the past, the present and the future, as well as between art and science, craftsmanship and technology. Indeed, progress signifies evolving while improving, without the taboo of a specific culture or the burden of the past.
The Academia has chosen espresso coffee as its instrument and specific area of research: espresso coffee intended as a means and an end, in all its forms and origins, in the arts and sciences, to multiply everyone’s knowledge and safeguard the individual components of the supply chain.
The space at the Accademia (its prerogative) Desires To Unite every generation to experience coffee culture and its element, to share experiences and, through ideas, generate an active debate on the contemporaneity and sustainable future of this precious plant.
Through a playful and experiential approach, visitors will enter the coffee universe, and become contemporary explorers in its research, education and technology.
The Accademia del Caffè Espresso stems from solid foundations, from a company such as La Marzocco with its innovative business mission: a humanistic model, a point of reference for Italian culture around the globe. Accordingly, the Accademia will establish privileged synergies and partnerships with institutions and brands that share this model for progress as well as its common values.
The place
La Marzocco officially opened the doors of its headquarters in Pian di San Bartolo in 1960. Always considered the “workshop” by the shop floor workers, its space is characterized by artisan know-how, and is animated by skilled hands. It is here that La Marzocco was based until 2009, the year the company moved to its current headquarters in Scarperia.
The patient restoration maintains the original structure and architectural design; the content instead is the fruit of fervent research and gathering of abundant proposals which, in these latter years, have been woven into the company’s journey.
And today, it is here that the Accademia del Caffè Espresso intends to carry on with its work.
