Description
Palazzo Grassi is the great white Istrian-stone palace on the Grand Canal, beside Campo San Samuele, and today one of Venice's best-known contemporary art venues: people come for the exhibitions from François Pinault's collection.
It was the last patrician palace built on the Grand Canal before the fall of the Serene Republic. The Grassi, rich merchants who had only recently entered the patriciate, wanted it huge and gleaming white, so that the whole city would see how much they mattered.
The façade on the Grand Canal is neoclassical and severe: two piani nobili of aligned windows, plain pilasters and a water portal of three arches, like a small triumphal arch. On the Campo San Samuele side there is a second façade, almost as imposing.
Inside, the plan looks more to Rome than to Venice. At the center is a columned courtyard, now covered by a glass roof, with the halls opening around it; behind it rises the grand staircase, frescoed by Michelangelo Morlaiter and Fabio Canal.
The rooms are those redesigned by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando: white, straight walls, gray floors, an even light from 1,800 spotlights. An almost monastic interior, meant to let the works speak, while the old stuccoes and ceilings remain intact above.
The exhibitions of the Pinault Collection, one of the world's great collections of contemporary art, change constantly: from Rothko to Jeff Koons, from Damien Hirst to Cattelan, alongside major monographic shows and exhibitions made with other museums.
Life in the palace was not always so elegant. Once the Grassi died out, in the nineteenth century it passed in a few years from a tenor to a Hungarian painter, then to a Greek baron, who split the ballroom in two and covered a fresco.
In 1908 the Swiss industrialist Giovanni Stucky bought it, and his son brought elevators, electric light and heating: that is why it is also called Palazzo Grassi-Stucky. In 1983 came Fiat, which entrusted it to Gae Aulenti and made it the home of great exhibitions, from the Phoenicians to Andy Warhol.
In 2005 François Pinault bought it to display his collection. Ando worked so that everything can be taken apart again: the eighteenth-century palace underneath is still the same.
It was the last patrician palace built on the Grand Canal before the fall of the Serene Republic. The Grassi, rich merchants who had only recently entered the patriciate, wanted it huge and gleaming white, so that the whole city would see how much they mattered.
The façade on the Grand Canal is neoclassical and severe: two piani nobili of aligned windows, plain pilasters and a water portal of three arches, like a small triumphal arch. On the Campo San Samuele side there is a second façade, almost as imposing.
Inside, the plan looks more to Rome than to Venice. At the center is a columned courtyard, now covered by a glass roof, with the halls opening around it; behind it rises the grand staircase, frescoed by Michelangelo Morlaiter and Fabio Canal.
The rooms are those redesigned by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando: white, straight walls, gray floors, an even light from 1,800 spotlights. An almost monastic interior, meant to let the works speak, while the old stuccoes and ceilings remain intact above.
The exhibitions of the Pinault Collection, one of the world's great collections of contemporary art, change constantly: from Rothko to Jeff Koons, from Damien Hirst to Cattelan, alongside major monographic shows and exhibitions made with other museums.
Life in the palace was not always so elegant. Once the Grassi died out, in the nineteenth century it passed in a few years from a tenor to a Hungarian painter, then to a Greek baron, who split the ballroom in two and covered a fresco.
In 1908 the Swiss industrialist Giovanni Stucky bought it, and his son brought elevators, electric light and heating: that is why it is also called Palazzo Grassi-Stucky. In 1983 came Fiat, which entrusted it to Gae Aulenti and made it the home of great exhibitions, from the Phoenicians to Andy Warhol.
In 2005 François Pinault bought it to display his collection. Ando worked so that everything can be taken apart again: the eighteenth-century palace underneath is still the same.