Cookies disclaimer

Our site saves small pieces of text information (cookies) on your device in order to deliver better content and for statistical purposes. You can disable the usage of cookies by changing the settings of your browser. By browsing our website without changing the browser settings you grant us permission to store that information on your device.
I accept I refuse

ex-lanificio-lucchesi
Share on:

Lucchesi Wool Mill History and evolution in the heart of local entrepreneurship: transformation of a cloth factory into a full-cycle textile plant

The history of this building, crucial in the entrepreneurial history of the city, begins in the early twentieth century, when Guido Lucchesi founded his textile company in via Carradori. With the passage of time and the growth of business, the wool mill transformed from a simple cloth factory into a full cycle factory, with all production departments. Realizing the need for a larger space to continue the activity, he purchased land from the Municipality, which extended up to the bastion of San Giusto, near the ancient walls. In this place, in front of the nineteenth-century slaughterhouses, a brick building was built with a double row of windows which expanded over time. Although the appearance of the structure is unitary, it is actually made up of several warehouses arranged mainly in rows adjacent to the walls.

Between the wars, the industry flourished, so much so that in the 1937 census the building was described as a factory for weaving, sorting rags, carding, spinning, washing and drying wool. A year later, the factory reached its maximum development, with around 500 employees.

Now the buildings belong to different owners: for the part overlooking Piazza dei Macelli, a part of them has been abandoned, while in the western part there is the pharmacy of the old hospital.

As for the original headquarters in via Carradori, they still house the Lanificio Marco Lucchesi – Vivere in Tessuto, managed by the third generation of the same Lucchesi family who founded it.

With the fourteenth-century walls as a backdrop, an ancient city gate rediscovered and visible for the first time, the evocative wooden trusses and the nineteenth-century cast iron columns that support a very modern structure intended to house the sample archive, the wool mill represents a ideal bridge between the past and present of the textile industry in Prato.

Information

  • Piazza Macelli, 10 - Prato (PO)

  • Accessibility for disabled: yes