Venice - The Old and The New

The Old

I just had to share a few examples of the contemporary Architecture in the amazing city of Venice....the city where everyone goes to feast their eyes on antiquity. My visit to Venice was part of a course of study on "Contemporary Italian Architecture". On this visit I had a chance to see a slightly different view of Venice.

The New:

"Casa delle Zattere"

The building below "Casa delle Zattere" was designed in 1953 by architect Ignazio Gardella. Building a new structure in Venice has always presented a stylistic dilemma; how could one ever hope to design a modern building that was compatible with the prevailing styles.

Details of windows of the "Casa delle Zattere"

This design might be thought of as a new gothic palace, a modern building rendered with a veneer of subtle gothicising detail. The stone base, the window frames and sills, balustrades, chimneys, doorways and corners are all designed to make reference to 13th century details and ideas. Along the canal, the 6 story high façade is detailed to fit comfortably with buildings to either side. The traditional Palace elements of base, piano nobile, attic, and roof are expressed within the context of a typical medieval Venetian courtyard house. The Architect, Gardella also used traditional Venetian building materials to help this building blend seamlessly into its surroundings. Today the home is occupied by the Cipriani family of the famed Cipriani Hotel.

Casa delle Zattere as seen from across the canal

This is a detail of the Casa delle Zattere and the adjoining Medieval church. Notice how the cornice details were carried through from the church to the new building, helping the contemporary structure to seamlessly blend to the ancient structure.

Olivetti Showroom

Below are details of the Olivetti Company showroom store designed by Carlo Scarpa 1957-1958 located in San Marco Plaza 101 . Carlo Scarpa paid great attention to detail, often using several different materials simultaneously. He explored tiny universes, studying the relationships among all the elements involved without losing sight of the project as a whole. This store is a virtual feast for the eyes. I could have spent several more hours there discovering all the details. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take pictures, but just happened to snap these from the outside. The store has been sold and is now occupied by an Art Gallery. It is a shame because they haven't done much to preserve the integrity of the original design. But it was still very worthwhile to visit and I found it very inspiring. Olivetti was very good in sponsoring and fostering the arts and were ahead of their time in being innovative.

Close-up of the hand laid mosaic floor made of Murrine. Murrine are sliced pieces of candle-layered Murano-glass
used to make the internal ornamentation of millefiori glass-paperweights."

Left Window detail in brass Brass / Right Fountain detail

Querini Stampalia Garden

Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) is an architect whose development draws on deep roots in the Veneto region, and on traditional forms and construction methods. He is the same architect that designed the Olivetti Showroom above. Galleria Querini Stampalia, (1961-1963) is the restoration of the ground-floor of an old Venetian palace with the integration of a garden that is used as a gallery and exhibition space. Again, as in the Olivetti showroom, the attention to detail was outstanding. I was fortunate to visit the garden late on a Sunday afternoon and was the only person there. I had the advantage of being able to view the garden in its entirety unobstructed, and plenty of time to savour the details.

The building was a former Palace and this is the entry via Gondola. Scarpa designed the new metal doors.

Hotel Monaco Renovation

I was very excited to see the new renovation of the Hotel Monaco as there has been some controversy surrounding it. One part of the Hotel remains intact in the traditional decor and the other part, being the entry off the side walkway and the Reception, have a new very glamorous modern look. I found the juxtaposition of the old with the new to be very fresh and well done.

New mosaic panel and large scale lamps. Notice the beautiful terrazzo floors throughout.

Left is a large scale new mosaic panel that serves to separate the new covered interior courtyard from the Reception.
Right The elevator vestibule was a old Venetian canal scene reproduced on glass and backlit.

Stair details

Suite entry doors. The bronze glass door knob was mounted in the center of the door....very cool.

Public washrooms featured these Cararra marble sinks. The taps were motion activated. The Italians do bathrooms like no other country. They are employ more energy efficient techniques than are currently found in North America. For example most taps, even in homes are motion sensor operated. Toilets are dual flush- a small flush or a full flush. Lights are motion sensor operated, they turn on when someone enters the room and turn off when you leave. Paper products in bathrooms are kept to a minimum ( no toilet seat covers and no paper towels).

Hotel Bauer

Left The hotel from the street
Right The Hotel from the Canal

Lobby Chairs covered in Reptile Leather

Right Murano glass ceiling & wall sconces

Table covered in Ostrich skin

Window Shopping

Emilio Pucci, Missoini, Bottega Veneta, Hermes - they are all there.......

You can’t mistake a Pucci print, which is iconically Italian. Since the late-1940s, when Italian skier and socialite Marchese Emilio Pucci casually tried his hand at design, the brand has been synonymous with bold, brightly colored graphic patterns with a kaleidoscopic, slightly psychedelic feel. Pucci prints usually appear on clingy, stretchy fabrics, and are widely applied in every category—evening wear, ready-to-wear, swimwear, accessories, shoes and home décor; they have even been featured in the logo of the Apollo 15 space mission and the interior of a Ford Lincoln Continental. Vintage Pucci is highly collectible, but present designer Christian LaCroix’s more current designs—which use prints from the Pucci archive—are also in high-demand.

Missoni is an Italian fashion house based in Milan. It is famous for its unique knitwear, made from a variety of fabrics in colourful patterns.

Bottega Veneta is a manufacturer of luxury leather goods, most famous for its Intrecciato line of woven leather. The company is based in the Veneto region of northeast Italy. A family firm founded in 1966, Bottega Veneta was bought by Gucci in 2001.

Hermes was showing it's hot, new scarf traveling bag. Bellissimo!!

See other articles on Venice:

The Island of Giudecca

VENICE - Bauer Palladio Hotel & Spa, Giudecca Island, Redentore

Venice - Architecture of the 20th Century

Patricia Gray writes about Interior Design inspirations, emerging trends, and the world of Design.
While you're here, subscribe to this feed so you don't miss out.

A Passion for Doors

Below is a collage of some photos of doors that I took on my recent trip to Venice and the Island of Giudecca, which sparked the talented artist Fifi to paint her rendition below. Well done Fifi!!! Check out her Blog Posting here where she shows two more of my travel photos rendered to perfection. As you all might know I have a passion for doors.

"I love doors... Front doors are the first impression the world has of your home and as the saying goes:
You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Patricia Gray

Patricia Gray writes about Interior Design inspirations, emerging trends, and the world of Design. 
While you're here, subscribe to this feed so you don't miss out.

Hotel Mascagni Rome - BEWARE

INTERNET BUYER BEWARE!!!!

I feel I have a responsibility to my readers to tell them of my experience and WARN them about booking a stay at the Hotel Mascagni in Rome. I wrote about my trip to Rome and my anticipation in staying in this hotel (see the post here) This Hotel came recommended to me by a client and, although I was satisfied with my stay, I am extremely unsatisfied with the way they handled my booking and their discounting of room rates via the Internet . I booked this Hotel online 3 weeks prior to my arrival In Rome and two nights before I was set to arrive I went online to send an email to the Hotel to confirm my reservation, and to my surprise I found that the room rate had been discounted ENORMOUSLY!!! In my email to the Hotel I brought this to their attention and requested the new "lowest available price". This request was ignored by the Hotel in their email reservation confirmation back to me. When I checked into the Hotel, I again enquired about the lower rate posted on the Internet, and I was told to talk to the Manager the next morning. Well for the next three mornings the Manager was not available and finally upon check-out I again requested to speak to Mr. or Ms. Manager, but this time I clarified it by saying that I would not finalize my bill WITHOUT speaking to Mr. or Ms. Manager. Miraculously Mr. Manager appeared. When I requested the lower Internet pricing that was available before the time of my check-in, I was told it was not available..... It seems that they have RULES (that are curiously not posted on their web-site), and as I apparently did not know "THE RULES", I was out of luck and out of pocket. I was told that THE RULES are:- "I should have canceled my reservation for the higher rate on-line and re-booked at the lower rate on-line"! This would have put me,the customer, in a precarious position of traveling to a foreign country and not knowing for sure if I would indeed be able to re-book my room. I expressed my dissatisfaction with this Unwritten and therefore Secret RULE, but was met with a blank stare and silence!! It was like I was being dismissed by Meryl Streep in the movie: The Devil Wears Prada" with a curt "That's All"!

So I would like to duly warn all of you readers of my Blog:

" BEWARE OF UNSATISFACTORY INTERNET BOOKING PROTOCOL for the HOTEL MASCAGNI ROME"

In North America I am used to booking rooms online and being guaranteed the "best available rate". But dear reader, please beware that this does not Apply for the Hotel Mascagni in Rome.

 

Patricia Gray writes about Interior Design inspirations, emerging trends, and the world of Design. 
While you're here, subscribe to this feed so you don't miss out.

Patricia Gray Interior Design: Carlo Mollino

Carlo Mollino Furniture

Carlo Mollino

On my recent trip to Italy I was fortunate to visit Turin for the day, which was the capital of Italy before Rome. My Professor Maddalena Coccagna arranged a private tour of the museum of Carlo Mollino called"Casa Mollino". Napoleone Ferrari, an Italian Architect has his office in this space and maintains it as a private museum. Napoleone was kind and generous enough to spend several hours with me showing me the space and explaining about the life and work of Carlo Mollino. And so begins my fascination with this now deceased Icon of Italian Design....Carlo Mollino:

Casa Mollino

In 1960, on the Po river in Turin, Carlo Mollino took possession of a villa, the 'warrior’s house of rest'. The magically surreal and mystical flat that Carlo Mollino occupied during the last fourteen years of his life, was a place away from the luxurious apartment he shared with his devoted housekeeper, but he never spent a single night there. His purpose may now be obvious: it was known to him that Kha (the tomb of the royal architect Kha circa 1390-1352 B.C.E, found intact in Deir el Medineh by the Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli during his excavation campaigns between 1900 and 1920) decorated his own future tomb in his spare time, and that’s what Carlo Mollino did with his 18th century apartment.

Carlo Mollino probably identified himself with Kha, and as the ancient Egyptians, he thought that the soul is made up of many different parts, not only is there the physical form, but there are semi-divine parts that survive death. Carlo Mollino, a lively and highly creative person loved life so much that he wanted to replicate every aspect of it and carry it to the kingdom of the dead.

Casa Mollino is the private pyramid of Carlo Mollino. An eclectic space, carefully created by his own aesthetic sense, made up of reminiscences of his life that appear among mirrors, lace curtains and velvet. The apartment was physical space of eternity for Carlo Mollino, decorated only with things to be taken along and accompanied by spiritual messages. Today, Casa Mollino is owned by Fulvio and Napoleone Ferrari, who recreated the original state of the interiors.

Carlo Mollino, Casa Mollin0

Left: Tiled entry foyer & view down central corridor to bedrooms. Shoji screens to left open to living room & dining room. The corridor is hung with heavy velvet curtains and the end of the hallway is mirrored so the effect is one of the hallway extending to infinity.

Carlo Mollino, Casa Mollino

Carlo Mollino salvaged doors from the theatre that was being renovated in Turin and used them throughout the suite. In the living room he lined one in mirror and created a miniature marble fireplace that acted more like a shrine. On either side of the fireplace Carlo Mollino enlarged photographs of landscapes and papered the walls. The chandelier is Murano glass. You can see the shoji screen on the right picture that separates this room from the entry foyer. The velvet curtain can close off the dining room from the living.

Carlo Mollino Casa Mollino

Left: view of the favourite leather sofa of Carlo Mollino
Right: one of two large shells that flank the door going to the patio. Zebra carpet - Carlo Mollino was fond of curves and organic shapes.

Above photos: Inside Casa Mollino

Carlo Mollino is a real genius of modern architecture and furniture design in Italy. Born in Turin 1905; d Turin, 1973. Carlo Mollino was trained as an architect, the son of the engineer Eugenio Mollino (1873-1953). He studied at the faculty of architecture of the Politecnico, Turin, graduating in 1931. Among early influences were the 'second Futurism' of the post-war period and a close friendship with the painter and scholar Italo Cremona (b 1905). At the beginning of his career Carlo Mollino collaborated with his father but also worked independently, producing such notable designs as the headquarters of the Confederazione degli Agricoltori (1933-4), Cuneo, and particularly the headquarters of the Societ Ippica Torinese (1935-9) in Turin. In the latter Carlo Mollino interpreted the doctrines of Neo-plasticism* and Rationalism** with great freedom, adapting spatial, material and technical ideas with complete originality. His first experiments in furnishings also date from this period, including promotional stands, residential rooms and individual items of furniture.

I quote Carlo Mollino directly from his writing entitled "Architettura, spazio creato" (Architecture, Created Space): "Only when a work is not explainable other than in terms of itself can we say that we are in the presence of art. This ineffable quality is the hallmark of an authentic work. Whoever contemplates it receives a "shock" that is unmistakable and, above all, unexplainable - a shock that he or she will try in vain to explain in rational terms. There are no reasons. If there were, we would have a way to build a convenient machine for making art through logic and grammar....." Carlo Mollino

---

Furniture Design

A world record price for a piece of 20th Century Furniture was set in June 2005 when a piece designed by Carlo Mollino was auctioned by Christie's New York in June 2005. An oak and glass table for Casa Orengo by Carlo Mollino, 1949 sold for $3,824,000.00

In the 1940s and 50s there was an explosion of design in Milan that established the sleek, fashionable and modern image of Italian furniture. On the other side of that movement, coming out of Turin, was Carlo Mollino (1905-1973), working from natural and animal shapes-- tree branches, animal horns, the curve of the human body-- to establish the "streamlined surreal" series of furniture designs. These pieces, evolved from an appreciation for the shapes of Art Nouveau and the architect Antoni Gaudi, were more expressive, and often more sculptural, than those being produced in Milan at the same time. The changes in the style of Carlo Mollino over the years responded to the evolving technology of bending and working with wood.

He (Carlo Mollino) interpreted the doctrines of neo-plasticism* and rationalism** of the period with great freedom, adapting spatial, material and technical ideas with complete originality. The figure or the form of the human body is an element which is always present in designs by Carlo Mollino.

The furniture that Carlo Mollino designed was often one-off pieces produced specifically for the client whose house he was decorating. so many of his pieces are very rare today. His large range of prototype furnishings were made in the studio of Apelli and Varesio in Turin.

1950 Apelli and Varesio Studio in Turin

Below are some of the furniture designs by Carlo Mollino.

1940 Carlo Mollino chair for Lisa et Gio Ponti

1944 Carlo Mollino Armchair for the Minola house. Reissued as model "Ardea"

1946 Carlo Mollino desk

1946 Carlo Mollino desk

1948 Carlo Mollino "Casa Orengo" chair

1949 Carlo Mollino "Arabesco" low table - plywood and glass

1952 Carlo Mollino "Gilda" armchair

1954 Carlo Mollino Gilda armchair

1954 Carlo Mollino wood table for the Pavia restaurant

1959 Carlo Mollino chair for the "Lutrario" ballroom

---

Interior Design

Carlo Mollino began producing furniture, like his 1937 "Milo" mirror, shaped like the Venus de Milo, and designing interiors, like the Miller House (1937). The interiors of Carlo Mollino during this period were characterized by their use of draped fabric to divide a room and by the use of sensuous upholstery like padded velvet. The Miller house also had an innovative lighting system, a mounted fixture on a track, which curved around the ceiling. Another well-known interior by Carlo Mollino was for the Minola house in 1944. The pieces he created for them included a radio-gramophone and a small glass table.

Carlo Mollino - Casa Miller 1937 / Carlo Mollino - Milo Mirror 1937
courtesy Museo Casa Mollino - Torino

Carlo Mollino - La Casa e l'ideale - Per la rivista Domus, Carlo Mollino - 1943 Casa Ada e Cesare Minola - Interno - Torino, Italia, 1944

---

Photography

Carlo Mollino was also an outrageous photographer. Each shoot was a sort of ceremony, he incessantly controlled every aspect of these remarkable images - although the negative, that is born perfect, for him does not exist. Carlo Mollino made use of retouching techniques in order to create a certain fantasy he had already constructed in his mind's eye. "everything is allowed, imagination is always saved" wrote Carlo Mollino.

---

* Neo-Plasticism was an art movement that came during the years between the two World Wars and to some extent, was an reaction on the part of their founders to the irrationality and chaos of "the war to end all wars." Neo-plasticism sought to impose upon art a sense of careful, compositional, and chromatic order. It was an austere exploration of design elements to the exclusion of all else. Neo Plasticism was the brainchild of Piet Mondrian. Artists such as van Doesburg, Severini, Lissitzky, and Arp teamed with the Bauhaus school, hoping to see adopted a universal language of art, and its integration into every aspect of daily life. The movement worked (with considerable success) to influence everything from painting to architecture, furniture design, interior design, consumer products, advertising, and even urban planning. It was utopian. It was socialistic, and it had a strong influence in Germany. Ironically, though it collapsed in disarray amidst the turmoil of Hitler and the Second World War, it was not without influence amongst the utopian planners of the Third Reich.

** Rationalism The intellectual principles of Rationalism are based on architectural theory. Vitruvius had already established in his work De Architectura that architecture is a science that can be comprehended rationally. This formulation was taken up and further developed in the architectural treatises of the Renaissance. Progressive art theory of the 18th-century opposed the Baroque beauty of illusionism with the classic beauty of truth and reason.

Twentieth-century Rationalism derived less from a special, unified theoretical work than from a common belief that the most varied problems posed by the real world could be resolved by reason. In that respect it represented a reaction to historicism and a contrast to Art Nouveau and Expressionism.

For a more extensive post on Casa Mollino see: Carlo Mollino - Casa Mollino