Designed by Mario Botta, one of today’s most acclaimed architects, the new congress centre included within the perimeter of the old Querini Stampalia Palace served as a pretext for a public reflection on Venice’s destiny on the occasion of its inauguration. Since the Sixties (“Il problema di Venezia” Venice’s Problem, Isola di San Giorgio, 4-7 ottobre 1962) the future of Venice has been discussed, with the spotlight turned on the disappearing of cultural, historical, economic and artistic values, but without a shared problem-solving plan.

Held on 18 September 2009 and occasioned by the Morandi Padoan donation of an important collection of applied arts, a study day came to focus on the relevance hand-crafted/artistic activities still have for Venice in the face of a loss, the transformation of Dominici’s antique store into a tourist souvenir shop, and an acquisition: the Padoan family donation to Querini Stampalia. The opening speech by mayor Massimo Cacciari outlined a new future for the main economic activity of the historical city: the city needs to aim at a more cultural tourism, able to appreciate the new architectures, such as Calatrava and Botta’s, and make of Querini Stampalia a point of reference in the Venetian touristic system in the same way as Gehry’s museum is in Bilbao. The subsequent speeches gave a pitiless account of the effects tourism has had on the city over the past three decades in particular (Reberschak). Once the city was neither an historical centre nor an old city but simply a true city (Pietragnoli). A special role was reserved to Theatre, Venice was a stage for worldwide theatre because it had the highest number of theatre spaces in Italy (Puppa). Another key element in Venice’s well-being was the production and sale of minor arts (Bellieni) as witnessed by the activity performed with love and culture by Dominici’s store in calle Larga San Marco.

In the fifties mayor Angelo Spanio defined Venice as “an ill city destined to die if urgent and radical remedies will not be applied to restore the vitality its heritage deserves” (E. Dal Carlo, editor, La preziosa donazione di un antiquario gentiluomo, 2009, p.25.) But was a plan for the city ever developed after World War II? Even if a project was ever outlined, with the new town planning scheme delineated and implemented by Wladimiro Dorigo and the avant-garde political practices (Christian democrat councils with socialist allied), innovations were not appreciated by the local community and boycotted by the central government always in the name of a past that didn’t allow future planning. From Leopoldo Pietragnoli, a direct witness, we learn that if since the thirties up until the end of the Sixties Venice had been able to maintain the characteristics that made it a true city: diversified use and functions with main administration activities concentrated along the Rialto-San Marco axis, together with an extraordinary social and economic vitality perceived by the inhabitants. By the Seventies, breaking point 1966 high water, the city turned into a “showcase” city tailored to the use and consumption of tourism. Moreover Pietragnoli pointed out a relevant aspect related to the urban time, Venice was a city alive and open round-the-clock thanks to a variety of economic activities present in the city and the elevated presence of a young and dynamic population (15.000 children opposed to today’s 2000). But today the city is blocked within times dictated only by the arrival and departure of tourist groups. Once the national and international centre of a vital commerce specialised in minor arts, with entire dynasties of antiquaries and craftsmen and their historical stores, Venice is now the capital of touristic kitsch and homologated brand chains. Looking at the pictures displayed in Querini Stampalia, shot in the fifties by teenager and novice photographer Gianni Berengo Gardin from his aunt’s shop of Venetian pearls right in front of Dominici’s, one performs an archeological operation plunging into a world “completely disappeared” (Berengo Gardin, Interview by D. Utimperger) and also understands what a third-rate bazaar the city has become.

From Dominici’s, a typical example of workshop-parlour-circle, chinaware and various object of vertu have migrated to Querini Stampalia after heir Renato Padoan’s donation. These precious objects testimony the existence of a fragile and resistant Venice, made of a matter whose colour doesn’t change over time, witnessing of a “past that could not be preserved and a future that could not be built”.

Therefore the history of a tea-cup may summarize the evolution of an entire city.