Palazzo Grassi (also known as Palazzo Grassi-Stucky) is a Venetian civil building, located in the San Marco district and overlooking the Grand Canal. It is one of the best-known lagoon buildings, as well as being home to art exhibitions worthy of particular interest: it is famous because it is defined as the last patrician palace overlooking the Grand Canal before the collapse of the Serenissima Republic of Venice.
Origins
The palace stands on a plot of land with a trapezoidal
shape, purchased in several phases by the Grassi family: at first the
latter owned a small group of buildings, purchased in 1732 by the
Trivellini brothers by the Zuanne brothers and Angelo Grassi: among
these houses there was also the building known today as "Palazzina
Grassi", located to the left of the monumental complex, in which the
Grassi settled while waiting to find another accommodation. In 1736 they
bought a building belonging to the Michiels, between 1738 and 1745 they
acquired other surrounding tenements, including the hospice for widows
founded by Faustina Michiel. The property thus obtained went from the
Grand Canal to Campo San Samuele and Calle Lin. The particular shape of
the building site had the advantage of offering a large facade on the
canal.
The precise circumstances of the construction of the
Palazzo Grassi are unknown. However, it is assumed that the works began
in 1748, thanks to a document which reports excavation work for the
preparation of foundations in the area. It is also thought that the
finishing works on the building date back to 1772, the year of Paolo
Grassi's death, and therefore almost contemporary with the second phase
of the works on the Ca' Rezzonico. The grand staircase was decorated
with frescoes by Michelangelo Morlaiter and Francesco Zanchi.
The
palace during the 19th century
The palace between 1840 and 1875
In
this period, due to the rapid and complete extinction of the Grassi
family, the palace underwent a sudden succession of sales which led it
to welcome four different owners within its walls.
Sold to the
Venetian commercial company of Spiridione Papadopoli in 1840 by the
brothers Angelo and Domenico Grassi, the palace was resold four years
later to the opera tenor Antonio Poggi. The latter, almost immediately,
gave it to the Hungarian József Agost Shöfft, an internationally
renowned painter, who at the time of his death gave way to his second
wife Giuseppina Lindlau.
The palace under the leadership of Baron
Simone de Sina
In 1857 the building was sold to a wealthy Greek
financier, Baron Simone de Sina, who made some substantial changes to
the general structure of the building:
to make the structure more
stable, he added four columns to the vestibule;
he had part of the
18th century decorations in the building demolished;
he divided the
ballroom on the first floor (thus concealing a fresco of the Canal) to
obtain an antechamber decorated with some works by the Austrian painter
Christian Griepenkerl.
The palace during the twentieth century
In 1908 the heirs of Baron de Sina sold the building to the Swiss
industrialist Giovanni Stucky, who after his death in 1910 left the
structure in the hands of his son Gian Carlo who inserted lifts,
electrical systems and of heating.
Gian Carlo Stucky is also
responsible for the revaluation of Giambattista Canal's frescoes, which
were finally transferred from the ballroom to the main staircase of the
structure.
In 1949, after passing into the hands of the Venetian
entrepreneur Vittorio Cini, the building passed to a real estate company
belonging to the Italian multinational Snia Viscosa of which Franco
Marinotti, one of the most important Italian industrialists of the
period and founder of the city of Torviscosa, was the the majority
shareholder. Such was his conviction that no entrepreneur could be
complete if he was not supported by a strong passion for art and culture
that he founded, financed and managed the International Center of Art
and Costume; for this purpose he made some changes to the building: the
covering of the courtyard with a glass window, the replacement of the
old floor with inlaid marble and the replacement of the garden with an
open-air theater with a retractable roof, aimed at hosting receptions
and fashion and costume shows , conferences and art exhibitions. From
1951 to 1958 important art and costume exhibitions were organized there;
when in 1959 the C.I.A.C. it passed into the hands of his son Paolo
Marinotti the primary interest concentrated on contemporary art,
promoting important collective and personal exhibitions of important
international artists from Jorn, to Ernst, Dubuffet and numerous others.
In 1978 the interest of the owners in the promotion and support of the
exhibition ceased and from there the decision to sell the building.
In 1983 Fiat decided to buy Palazzo Grassi and to entrust the
renovation work to Gae Aulenti. This she decided to insert in the
various rooms of the structure, regular finials that ended in an
inclined cornice, allowing the insertion of technical systems of all
kinds. Furthermore, she reinforced the metal structure of the courtyard
window with four fake metal doors and had various elements (including
fake doors) of the building repainted in an aqua green colour, in
harmonic contrast with the pink color of the marmorino. A new
technological plant was created for heating and conditioning the
building, with lagoon water condensed heat pumps.
The palace in
the 2000s: François Pinault and Tadao Ando
In 2005, the French
entrepreneur François Pinault decided to buy Palazzo Grassi in order to
be able to exhibit inside his private collection of contemporary and
modern works of art. To this end, he entrusted the renovation and
modernization of the structure to the Japanese architect Tadao Andō.
The architect immediately decided to keep the architectural
reference points of the structure intact throughout his work, thus
guaranteeing the principle of reversibility of his work:
The
finials recall the style of the walls created by Aulenti. The only
difference between the two architectural solutions lies in the fact that
Ando decided to straighten them, giving the building a neutral, almost
monastic appearance which, according to the artist himself, "would like
to refer to a work by Donald Judd".
The stairs have been covered with
a simple white marmorino, unlike the floors, for which the Japanese
artist has decided to opt for gray linoleum, which covers the ancient
inlaid marbles.
The restoration of some precious marbles and original
stuccoes has been entrusted to the skilled hands of some local
craftsmen, guardians of the ancient techniques of the Serenissima.
The lighting system consists of 1800 adjustable and adjustable
spotlights fixed to hollow steel beams which also house the video
surveillance equipment, presence detectors and emergency lights: it was
thus possible to avoid damaging the precious ceilings.
The windows
overlooking the Grand Canal have been embellished with internal Venetian
blinds.
The window was provided with a curtain.
The entrance has
been substantially enlarged, and the ticket office has been placed under
the columns of the atrium.
Distinguished by two large facades, one front facing the Grand
Canal and one side facing Campo San Samuele, it stands out for its
incredible size and candor. It denotes the Grassi family's desire to
be publicly recognized as powerful, influential and wealthy: a sort
of status symbol.
The main facade, in a clear neoclassical
style, hides a very complex and scenographic plan, inspired more by
the Roman model than by the Venetian model. In the centre, a
colonnaded courtyard opens up, similar to that of Palazzo Corner,
which divides the structure into two blocks: the front one houses
four side rooms and a central hall, while the rear one houses
smaller rooms and a sumptuous staircase decorated by Michelangelo
Morlaiter and by Fabio Canal, similar in shape to that of Palazzo
Pisani Moretta.
Returning to the main front, it is covered
entirely in Istrian stone and respects the traditional tripartite
arrangement: the windows, with a linear appearance and classical
inspiration, are concentrated in a polyphora on each of the main
floors. The forums differ in decoration: those on the first floor
are rounded, while those on the second have tympanums, sometimes
curvilinear, sometimes triangular. The windows are separated by
smooth pilasters culminating in Ionic or Corinthian capitals. It has
a water portal divided into three holes, similar to a triumphal
arch. The façade is closed by a band with a corbelled cornice, which
hides the attic.
The side façade, equally imposing, imitates
the main one in style, proposing a Roman-inspired ground portal and
a Serlian one. There are numerous single-lancet windows with or
without a balcony, neatly arranged in pairs.
The François Pinault Collection is one of the five largest
collections of modern and contemporary art in the world.
The
collection is essentially made up of paintings, sculptures, photographs
and videos belonging to the artistic movements of poor art, minimalism,
post-minimalism and pop art.
This is made up of works by some of
the most important international artists. Among them:
Mark Rothko
Piero Manzoni
Donald Judd
Pierre Huyghe
Damien Hirst
Maurizio Cattelan
Bernard Frize
Urs Fisher
Rudolph Stingel
Andy Warhol
Carl Andre
Jeff Koons
Piotr Uklanski
Lucio
Fontana
Mario Merz
Bertrand Lavier
Dan Flavin
Cy Twombly
Charles Ray
Takashi Murakami
The display of the works in the
collection is conceived through temporary exhibitions, which also
alternate with exhibitions conceived together with other museums:
Where Are We Going? Selected works from the François Pinault collection,
2006, curated by Alison M. Gingeras
Picasso, the joie de vivre.
1945-1948, 2006-07, edited by Jean-Louis Andral
The François Pinault
Collection, a post-pop selection, 2006-07, curated by Alison M. Gingeras
Sequence 1 - Painting and Sculpture in the François Pinault Collection,
2007, curated by Alison M. Gingeras
Rome and the Barbarians, the
birth of a new world, 2008, curated by Jean-Jacques Aillagon
Italics.
Italian art between tradition and revolution, 1968-2008, 2008-09,
curated by Francesco Bonami
Mapping the Studio, 2009-11, edited by
Alison M. Gingeras and Francesco Bonami
The world belongs to you,
2011-12, edited by Caroline Bourgeois
Madame Fisscher, 2012, edited
by Caroline Bourgeois
The voice of images, 2012-13, curated by
Caroline Bourgeois
Rudolf Stingel, 2013-14, edited by Elena Geuna
The Illusion of Light, 2014-15, curated by Caroline Bourgeois
Irving
Penn, Resonance, 2014-15, edited by Pierre Apraxine and Matthieu Humery
Martial Raysse, 2015, edited by Caroline Bourgeois
Sigmar Polke,
2016, curated by Elena Geuna and Guy Tosatto
Treasures from the Wreck
of the Unbelieveable, Damien Hirst, 2017, curated by Elena Geuna
Cows
by the Water - Albert Oehlen, 2018-19, curated by Caroline Bourgeois
Skin. Luc Tuymans, 2019-20, curated by Luc Tuymans and Caroline
Bourgeois