Domenico Parisi, called Ico, was born in Palermo on September 23, 1916 from Sicilian parents, already living in Piedmont. In 1925, the Parisi family moved to Como where Ico became a building inspector in 1936 and spent a period of apprenticeship at Studio Terragni. He has the opportunity to know and frequent personalities of the architecture and art of Como such as Cattaneo, Lingeri, Radice, Rho, Persico and Sartoris. Passionate about film and photography, he made, at Terragni's request, the photographic images of the Casa del Fascio (The House of Fascism in Italian). Dismissed from the front in 1943, he returned to Como and resumed his design activity, mainly involving furniture, exhibition installation and interior architecture. Luisa Aiani, whom he married in 1947, collaborated with him. Together they will open the Ruota studio, a place of design but also a place of art, exhibition and culture.
From the beginning of the 1950s, Parisi's activity beed more and more prolific, whether in the field of architecture or design. He designed furniture, first as a single piece with Brianza craftsmen, then in industrial production, with companies such as Cassina, and many decorative art objects, such as ceramics and glassware.
The end of the 1960s marked a turning point in his conceptual research. With the Contenitoriumani (Human Containers in Italian), made in collaboration with the sculptor Francesco Somaini and presented for the first time at the Milan Furniture Show in 1968, Parisi begins a new research project aimed at defining a utopian-existential idea of living.
The culmination of his conceptual and existential research was between 1974 and 1976, with the "Operazione Arcevia", approached collectively and interdisciplinary and finalized by the design of an entire community. This work is presented as part of the 76th Venice Biennale and then exhibited at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome (1979).
Many graphic researches, the subject of numerous collective and personal exhibitions, derive from such a socio-urbanist experience, highly utopian. He died in Como on 19 December 1996.