The Olivetti store in Venice is a two-story store located in Piazza
San Marco, the work of the architect Carlo Scarpa. It is one of the most
important and first in the world (if not the first, certainly the most
famous) example of a flagship store (forerunner of the modern
"flagstore"). Itself classified as a building of national importance, it
is one of the most representative integration works of a modern
intervention (mid-fifties of the twentieth century) on a historic
building protected by cultural heritage (from the 16th century). Among
the most famous works of Carlo Scarpa, it represents all of his artistic
personality and is one of the most significant and studied examples (as
is the Castelvecchio Museum as regards the legal constraints linked to
restoration) of conditioned design and architectural solutions by
legislative constraints (safety, usability) and territory (high tide
phenomenon).
After having lost its original function for years,
the shop was reopened on 20 April 2011 after a careful philological
restoration, which restored its colours, furnishings and collection of
original Olivetti machines. Assicurazioni Generali, which retain
ownership of it, have entrusted it to the Fondo Ambiente Italiano,
which, after having taken care of its restoration, takes care of its
maintenance and ensures its use by the public.
The layout of the shop was commissioned in 1957 to Scarpa by Adriano
Olivetti, who had taken over the abandoned premises of a previous shop
in the Piazza. This space, precisely located in the corner under the
loggia of the Procuratie Vecchie and the sotoportego del Cavalletto,
near that of the celestial arch that leads to the Orseolo basin, in
Olivetti's plans was to become a prestigious display and launch point
for known office items, attracting both the attention of customers and
aesthetes. In fact, given the location, the intervention entrusted to
Scarpa had to be carried out with the utmost care and precision, as well
as with profound respect for the historic square and its monuments.
Scarpa prepared a project of great formal refinement with great
attention to the choice of materials, showing himself to be increasingly
resolute in developing an architectural style that was essential on the
one hand, but at the same time refined and eclectic on the other, mixing
together different elements and always succeeding to combine them with
elegance.
In 2009 the precarious situation of the shop was
illustrated: therefore the restoration of the interiors began, which
ended with the reopening of the space to the public on 20 April 2011.
The shop consists of an environment volumetrically united with the
first floor almost entirely on a mezzanine, which includes without
interruption the small entrance space adjacent to the square, the
exhibition space and a discreet corridor, which leads to a rectangular
room from which you access the services, with which the ground floor
ends. In this large room, to delimit the corridor, there is a staircase,
modeled with lateral offsets, through which you reach the first floor,
half as large as the lower one. Also in this compartment, between the
entrance and the foot of the staircase, there is a very elegant
ornamental fountain, the nozzle of which is made up of a slab of white
marble and internal copper with the Olivetti logo, which pours a light
flow of water into a rectangular basin of black marble, perfectly
smooth. On this tank, a beautiful sculpture by Alberto Viani is planted
on the side. All the rooms are paved with a gentle interplay of marble
and Murano glass: a series of quadrangular tesserae, very similar to
each other in shape but different, from area to area, by colour, are
interspersed with smooth white stone finishes, with a very pleasant
glossy effect on the entire surface.
The colors chosen by Scarpa
are red, yellow and blue, i.e. the primary colors plus white. The
extensive use of continuous glass along the perimeter of the ground
floor contributes to an osmosis between the interior and exterior of the
room. This trend is also underlined by the position of the entrance
space, organized with a low threshold in smooth marble which, from the
trachyte floor of the Piazza, rises slightly and leads, through a door
preceded by a folding sliding gate, into the first large room. On the
outside, the frames of the showcases are in teak and white marble, with
internal modular hinged shelves and hanging lamps for lighting the
products. Under the entire exterior wall of the store runs a concrete
plinth mixed with pebbles, contrasting beautifully with the smoothness
of the teak and glass and camouflaged with the ancient pavement of the
sidewalk of the sub-archways. On the side wall, behind a large Olivetti
logo, there is a small electrical substation that can be opened for
maintenance.