Happy birthday to the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli
The Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli turns 99 today!
It was January 22, 1922 and a new institution opened its doors in Spilimbergo. It was called the “Scuola professionale per mosaicisti” (“Professional School for Mosaicists”) and was aimed at all those who wanted to learn a very common profession in the western Friuli foothills and until then handed down in family laboratories.
The School offered practical and theoretical training: in addition to the many hours of laboratory, mathematics, Italian, drawing and French were studied in anticipation of working abroad. The School knew that it could not stop the phenomenon of emigration, which resumed vigorously after the war, but it had the ambition to train qualified workers: young people capable of entering the world of work not as simple unskilled workers (often unskilled and underpaid), but as skilled workers able then, in various foreign countries, to make a career up to set up their own businesses.
Since then, the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli has come a long way: it has its own headquarters that has expanded to meet various educational needs, has made itself known in the world through its mosaic works, has become cosmopolitan with its students of various nationalities, carries out continuous research to combine the knowledge of tradition with contemporary expressive forms, experiments with technical solutions and innovative materials, is committed to the promotion and dissemination of the art of mosaic.
In facing the challenges of the present, with the experience gained in almost a century of history, the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli looks to the future and is preparing to celebrate its 100th year in 2022 with a rich program of events.
