Villaggio Valentino

In 1996, Brian Clarke collaborated with architect Emilio Ambasz on several features of the Ethra Reserve complex, a luxury resort in the Puglia region of Italy. For what is now called the ‘Clarke Room’, he designed integral artworks for the theatre, conference centre and amphitheatre ‘loggia’ tower at Villaggio Valentino. In 2021 Clarke describes his work at the Villaggio Valentino theatre as ‘the first time I felt the real pull of huge organic forms.'

On the project, Clarke stated in 2019:

‘I felt Villaggio Valentino was immensely successful. I conceived the work as having a nocturnal presence, said ‘light it up at night’. The plaza in front became a restaurant, because people loved sitting there, because its glow created a kind of theatrical event. I chose, and had fabricated, opal and opalescent glass, so that in the daytime, in the outside light, it looks like sliced alabaster.’

Clarke collaborated with Ambasz again in in 2000–2001, designing the stained glass panelling and ceiling of the Kalidria Hotel and its restaurant in the same development.