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 (...)

The head of Alberto Sordi coming out of a sculpture by Alberto Viani; Alberto Giacometti looking with desire at a buxom model, in front of his bony sculptures; the service policeman bowing in front of Rauschenberg, congratulating him for the Golden Lion of 1964: there are many funny and tasty (...)

For the Redentore, the Redeemer, Palladio created a church which is sitting on its steps while watching the city with sly and sleepy eyes. A church which is extremely near to the city but inevitably isolated by the Giudecca canal, crossed by enormous cruising boats that sometimes darken it (...)

The idea of Venice The ‘refoundation’ in romantic terms of the idea of Venice as a city that «can be compared just with itself », enchanted site of an immaterial, unique experience, is already fully included in Goethe. The chapter about Venice taken from his book Italian Journey begins with these (...)