It is Palermo’s most iconic canvas, the painting that has always described the city in the collective imagination. Donated by Renato Guttuso himself to the University of Palermo a few months after its completion, in 1974, La Vucciria has always remained at the Steri, for the past two years exhibited in an immersive room that is completely dedicated to it. To celebrate its first half-century, a multi-level ‘horizontal’ narrative has been constructed over four days with a long Notte Bianca dedicated to the canvas. But this is not the only novelty at the Steri: the famous ‘staircase’ that Carlo Scarpa designed in the late 1970s has just been completed. The ‘hand’ is that of the great architect’s then young collaborator, Fabio Lombardo, who worked on Scarpa’s drawings and design idea. And the new face of the Museums of the University of Palermo, created by art director Alessandro Fiore, is also ready.
‘Fifty years ago, Renato Guttuso completed La Vucciria, an authentic representative icon of Palermo, later donated to our University and housed at the Steri in an evocative setting,’ explains Rector Massimo Midiri. ’Also in the 1970s, this wonderful historical site, one of the city’s symbolic places, went through a period of profound renovation with major restoration work. Celebrating this anniversary together with the inauguration of the renovated staircase designed by Carlo Scarpa is certainly an important moment for the cultural, artistic and historical reality of our territory. Added to this is the new visual identity of UniPa’s Museums, which well represents a consolidated reality, a true ‘ecosystem’ tool for enhancing the value of its collections and a powerful cultural attractor for local, regional, national and international fruition’. 
The staircase designed by Carlo Scarpa is part of a rather controversial space whose original design is still being researched: on the main façade of Palazzo Chiaromonte on Piazza Marina, there is in fact a doorway leading to the fourteenth-century building. Here Carlo Scarpa conceived a connecting space that has a view of the ficus in Piazza Marina and, on the other side, of the Steri’s stupendous inner courtyard. ‘It is not easy to intervene on the works of Carlo Scarpa, whose finesse today places him among the ten greatest 20th century architects in the world,’ explains Michelangelo Gruttadauria, president of the Athenaeum Museum System. ’The valorisation of this unique place, and of the Athenaeum’s museum heritage, is also taking place with the presentation of the new Museum System brand and with the public engagement activities for the fiftieth anniversary of Guttuso’s Vucciria. In the 1970s, architect Roberto Calandra was commissioned to restore the building and called Carlo Scarpa to design this empty space that represents the junction between different rooms and different heights, and with the offices of the adjoining Palazzo Abatelli through the Sala Terrana. Scarpa solved this in an ingenious way, creating one of his most iconic places. Including the famous staircase on which, in 2008, glass parapets were installed for safety reasons. While these did not reflect Carlo Scarpa’s vision, they were dull and scratched. Fabio Lombardo, then a young collaborator of the architect, and Scarpa’s son Tobia were commissioned to design a new parapet, which has now been completed and is ready to be presented. The glass was removed and Carlo Scarpa’s original design was returned ‘clean’ and lightened in its full/empty ratio; the parapet is now made of cold-drawn steel and treated at 180 °C with special paints, with metal and wood elements (materials dear to Scarpa), and brass, stainless steel and burnished steel bushings. The parapet was made in Venice by the Zanon workshops, historic blacksmiths who worked with Carlo Scarpa, and personally assembled by Francesco Zanon.
The new face of the UniPa Museums:
‘The new name of the Museums of the University of Palermo,’ says Laura Anello, Artistic Superintendent of the University Museums, ’is Unipa Heritage, an acronym that indicates preciousness and value and which is accompanied by a new graphic identity, the result of long and painstaking work on each place, for which I would like to thank art director Alessandro Fiore and all the museum managers who collaborated. A different logo has been created for each museum within a unique and coordinated graphic identity, because each of the University’s treasures is part of a marvellous galaxy of beauty and knowledge that must be unitedly promoted and communicated’.
The fiftieth anniversary of Renato Guttuso’s La Vucciria:
Fifty years ago in his studio in Velate, Renato Guttuso painted La Vucciria, the canvas that perhaps more than any other has captured the collective imagination, the Palermo market as a place of tradition, community, frenetic activity. The Vucciria was donated by the painter to the University of Palermo on the occasion of the reopening of the newly restored Steri. Two years ago, an immersive room was set up exclusively dedicated to the canvas. Its first fifty years offer the cue for a horizontal narration with different languages, part of a project of the University and the University Museum System with CoopCulture, from 19 to 22 December. ‘The public-private synergy with the university, for which CoopCulture has the honour of managing the public-facing services of both the Steri and the Botanical Garden, allows us to engage in the enhancement of these places. And it is in this perspective that the project on the Vucciria fits in, which will see a better offer for the public, also enhancing the Guttuso Museum in Bagheria; and a four-day event to celebrate the 50th anniversary with the city,’ explains Masino Lombardo, regional manager of CoopCulture Sicily. Thematic visits conducted by experts, author visits, performances, talks, educational workshops for children, and a ‘white night’ to celebrate the iconic work of Palermo’s society and its historical development are planned. And a special agreement between SiMuA, the Municipality of Bagheria and CoopCulture, to visit the Guttuso Museum at Villa Cattolica in Bagheria and La Vucciria at Steri with a single ticket.
Representing the municipality of Bagheria, with whom a single ticket, Steri – Guttuso Museum, will be established, was the Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Culture Daniele Vella, who spoke at the press conference together with the Rector of the University of Palermo Massimo Midiri, the Artistic Superintendent of the University Museums Laura Anello, the scientific director of the Guttuso Archives Marco Carapezza and the President of the University Museum System Michelangelo Gruttadauria.