Alessandro Michele looks for a home in every city he visits, entertaining romantic visions for himself, and often following up on them. He has a particular love for faded beauties, run-down places brimming with lost grandeur – and this is why he embarked on the quixotic endeavour of renovating one of the most mysterious buildings in Rome: Palazzo Scapucci.
As a teenager in the early 1990s, Michele strolled the Eternal City with a solitary, focused look. Bright green hair held up in a mohawk, he was the only punk kid in his neighbourhood. Merely standing at the bus stop was an adventure. He attended a conservative high school in the bourgeois Quartiere Trieste and fell in with a group of anarchist friends before moving on. Rome has always been the backdrop for his adventures, for walks to the centre, to Babylonia and Dakota, two long-lost avant-garde warehouses that blasted deafening techno and sold refurbished or painted Converse All Stars, Palladium sneakers, as well as Indian silk scarves, heavy-metal jewellery, fishnets and industrial punk clothing. Outsiders from all parts of Rome flocked to these safe havens, gathering to shop, listen to music and share ideas.
Michele's uncle had a studio restoring antique furniture tucked in the gardens
