Join author Katia Lysy for the launch of 'La Foce: Paradise in Tuscany' in conversation with designer Luciano Giubbilei as she tells the story of the estate over the last 100 years through prosperity, war, tragedy and social change.
In 1924, when Iris and Antonio Origo purchased the vast estate of La Foce in Val d’Orcia, south of Siena, the landscape was dominated by bleak clay hills and inhabited by desperately poor farm labourers. Inspired by a Virgilian bucolic vision of agricultural and social prosperity, in a very few decades the Origos nursed the land back to life, building roads, schools and a clinic and creating a spectacular garden at Villa La Foce.
The gardens at La Foce were designed from 1924 to 1939 by the English architect Cecil Pinsent, the master of the Anglo-Italian garden, who worked closely with Iris Origo. Boxwood hedges and flowerbeds framed in travertine stone, lemon-planted terraces and huge cypress barriers gradually emerged from the desolate landscape, a transformation documented by period photographs from the Origo family archives.
In La Foce: Paradise in Tuscany, Katia Lysy, granddaughter of Iris and Antonio, tells the story of the gardens over the last 100 years of prosperity, war, tragedy and social change.
The interior of the villa and its gardens today are illustrated with striking photographs by Simon Upton and Matteo Carassale.
Joining author Katia Lysy in conversation will be the renowned designer Luciano Giubbilei.
Speakers
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Katia Lysy
Katia Lysy
Katia Lysy was born in Rome. She has worked for Italian television RAI 3, in publishing, as a journalist and as a literary translator from English and French into Italian. In 2010 she moved to Val d’Orcia, in southern Tuscany, to manage and develop La Foce, the family estate originally purchased by her grandparents Iris and Antonio Origo in 1924. In 2016 she edited an unpublished pre-war diary, A Chill in the Air, by her grandmother Iris Origo, published both in the US and in Britain. Every year La Foce is visited by garden enthusiasts, readers of Iris Origo and admirers of the beautiful Tuscan landscape of which La Foce is so much a part.
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Luciano Giubbilei
Luciano Giubbilei
Luciano Giubbilei began his career in gardens when he moved from his birthplace, Siena, to London in 1994. By 1997, he had completed his studies at the Inchbald School of Design and established his own practice. This practice has evolved with a defining emphasis on exploring and nurturing a sustained dialogue with artists, architects, plantsmen and craftsmen. It is this commitment to collaboration that Giubbilei believes is key to expanding and challenging the creative process, moving the practice from the limitations of a familiar language.
Giubbilei began working on his experimental border at Great Dixter in 2012, encouraging an exploration of planting possibilities that has led the studio towards larger landscape projects in Europe and the US, including substantial commissions in Tuscany, on the Balearic island of Formentera and in Dallas, Texas.
In 2014 Giubbilei was awarded Best Show Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and the following year was invited by the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to collaborate on an exhibition of the work of the American sculptor Ursula von Rydinsgvard at the Venice Art Biennale. In 2016 he received Siena’s Premio Mangia, given to those who have 'achieved a clear international reputation through their work' and, in so doing, have represented Siena on the world stage.
Previous publications include ‘The Art of Making Gardens’ (2016) and ‘The Gardens of Luciano Giubbilei’ (2010), both published by Merrell.
