VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

copyright Manfredi Bellati

The Curator – Aaron Betsky: Biennale Architettura – 11th International Architecture Exhibition – OUT THERE : ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING. Phillip Rylands, director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, chats to the Biennale’s curator, Aaron Betsky outside the American Pavilion. According to Aaron Betsky – for six years director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) in Rotterdam, one of the most prestigious museums and architecture centers in the world, and Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum since last year – the 11th Architecture Exhibition, until November 23rd, 2008, turns to architecture beyond building to address the central issues of our society. Instead of buildings, it will present installations made by architects who have responded to the impulse offered by Betsky and accepted his challenge. This challenge reverberates onto us, encourages our capacity for interpretation, and relies on emotion to give us the chance to make sense of the world and feel at home in it. Betsky points out “what should be an obvious fact: architecture is not building. Architecture must go beyond buildings because buildings are not enough. They are big and wasteful accumulations of natural resources that are difficult to adapt to the continually changing conditions of modern life”.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

VENICE: The 11th International Architecture Biennale. Enel Contemporanea: Deep Garden a project by A12. Deep Garden is a site-specific project installation by the young Italian artists A12. The installation created to coincide with the 11th International Architectural Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, is on display in the lagoon until November 23rd, 2008. Deep Garden is a tribute to Venice and its architectural uniqueness and features a hidden garden submerged in the Venetian lagoon, with access from a pier and covered with a reflecting outer surface. The A12 installation creates an unusual, even surreal space, in which visitors can immerse themselves in the silence of nature. The hidden garden plunges the viewer into an artistic, poetic experience, which offers a moment of calm from the frenetic pace of everyday life. In a city like Venice, where the unique, characteristic urban structure is immersed in the lagoon, the work of A12 becomes a symbol of man’s ability to construct new experiences in seemingly improbable places.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

photograph courtesy La Biennale di Venezia

THE AWARDS – Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Frank O. Gehry. With this award, the desire is to stress, in line with the spirit of the 11th International Architectural Biennale, how much Gehry’s work is the significant result of years of experimentation. “Frank Gehry has transformed modern architecture”; writes Aaron Betsky in his motivation. “He has liberated it from the confines of the ‘box’ and the constraints of common building practices. As experimental as the art practices that have been his inspiration, Frank Gehry’s architecture is the very modern model for an architecture beyond building.”

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

“WOOD” # 1 - The Arsenale. Ungapatchket, project by Gehry Partners, LLP. Frank Gehry has long been interested in the exploration of buildings that appear unfinished, that gesture beyond their confines, their sites and their programs, and that are sites of experimentation. He pursues his work through endless models and explores both form and space through multiple designs. As a result, nothing is ever simple or closed in his work. This project is entitled Ungapachket, which in Yiddish means something like thrown together, with a secondary sense that it is decorated unnecessarily lavishly. It consists of a framework of sturdy timbers, up to four meters long, that rise up through the center of the Arsenale and supports undulating, clacked clay plates. It is based on a building he is designing for Moscow; Gehry means this fabrication to evoke the construction of both cathedrals and such giant sculptures as the Statue of Liberty. It gestures at an architecture that exists before, through and after buildings.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

THE AWARDS – Golden Lion for Best National Participation to Poland for Hotel Polonia The Afterlife of Buildings – Nicolas Grospierre and Kobas Laksa. Curators: Grzegorz Piatek and Jaroslaw Trybus. Welcome to Hotel Polonia: The Afterlife of Buildings. Have some rest, please. Take a seat on the hotel beds. The Polish Pavilion presents six buildings raised in Poland within the last decade.

Nicolas Grospierre The Life of Buildings. The Sanctuary of Lichen, 2008 photography - (photograph by Manfredi Bellati).

Each of them is shown in two photographs by Nicolas Grospierre. The chosen buildings represent different styles and tastes. They perform various functions as well. What they have in common is their rank and prominence. As for their base level, it is the faith in infinite lasting and permanence of architecture, as well as, in its acquired, prestigious function. We doubt permanence. Give your fantasy free rein. After all, we know that nothing last forever. Everything is changing. The world is in a constant rush. Architecture will also be subject to modification. Each of the six grand edifices will have to surrender to the passage of time.

Kobas Laksa The afterlife of Buildings. The Sanctuary of Lichen, 2008 photomontage - (photograph by Manfredi Bellati).

Please, take a look at the possible scenarios of a change to their function and appearance, visualized by Kobas Laksa. These visions of the future are likely, though one can imagine alternative ones as well. Our aim is to provoke. Since Although “We feel, guess, suspect what needs to be done. But we cannot know the shape and form it will eventually take. It will be different from everything we’ve got used to,” (Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Life, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005)

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

THE AWARDS – Golden Lion for Best Installation project in the International Exhibition to Greg Lynn Form (U.S.A.) for Recycled Toy Furniture. Our world is plastic. It changes shape and takes on qualities seemingly at will. In a more direct manner, more and more of it consists of objects made out of various forms of plastic. Here the architect, Greg Lynn appropriates one of the most ubiquitous phenomena of our plastic environment: children’s toys. Fusing and molding them together like a new kind of brick, he uses them to create four prototype pieces of furniture: a low bench, a storage wall, a coat rack and a cylindrical shoe closet. In this manner, he is recycling what is usually thrown out as we grow up and change. In doing so, he discovered that he could make these mass produced objects into modular components while letting them retain their voluptuous and playful nature. In the accompanying film, he imagines that these joyful building blocks could create complete environments in which we could be both adults responsibly reusing and occupying our environment, and playful inhabitants of an always new world.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

“SPACE” # 1. The Portuguese Pavilion. Out Here: Disquieted Architecture, project by Eduardo Souto de Moura and Angelo de Sousa. The curators, Joaquim Moreno and Jose Gil, invited the architect, Eduardo Souto de Moura and the visual artist, Angelo de Sousa to produce a multidisciplinary proposal that temporarily will be part of the Fondaco Marcello, The Portuguese Pavilion, on the Grand Canal. The challenge issued by the commissioners to the creators took shape in the conception of Out Here: Disquieted Architecture, an intervention that invites the visitors to follow a path of pendular movements between mirrors and reflections through a field of images that amplify ad infinitum their experience of relating to and observing the locale.


The exterior. The exterior space, from the Grand Canal, the visitor will see a mirrored surface that makes the building disappear, creating an empty space, an absence in the plane formed by the line of houses that are located on the bank of the canal. This astonishing facade mirrors images in motion and reflecting the surrounding landscape, palaces, water, boats give the different points of view obtained by the observer on his journey, they reveal multiple perspectives/ perceptions of the city.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

“SPACE” # 2 - The Belgium Pavilion. 1907… after the party, project by Office Kersten Geers David Van Severen – curator Moritz Kung. 1907 … after the party, the figures in the title refer to the year when the Belgium Pavilion was built – the first foreign one in the Giardini, designed by the architect Leon Sneyers. The project is a tribute to the historical pavilion and puts it on show in its purest form as a monument, accessible from all sides, empty and stripped of all secondary additions. This is achieved, from the outside, by means of a seven-meter high double walled façade in galvanized steel, which does not allow the visitor an initial view from the promenade. This architecture, which looks both solid and filigreed, provides the setting, like a new pavilion, for what is being exhibited, which is the architecture of the existing Belgium pavilion. Between the building and the added facades, the existing rooms and the new patio, there is an empathic interaction between an inversion of the interior and exterior spaces. This impression is enhanced by the confetti scattered around the site and randomly positioned chairs. The monumental enclosure raises not only topical political, social and ecological issues, but also evokes a sentimental sense of a party that is over: the celebration of the centenary of the Belgium pavilion in 2007, which never actually took place.A detail. The confetti scattered on the ground evoke a sentimental sense of a party that is over: the celebration of the centenary of the Belgium pavilion in 2007, which never actually took place.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

"SPACE” # 3 – The Italian pavilion. Going Walkabout, project by Ben Nicholson. The labyrinth is a raw architectural plan without substance, save the invitation to walk in dust. There certainly could be walls and windows, foundations and so forth, but the spatial construct of a labyrinth works perfectly well when the design is committed to memory and set down anywhere that a person sees fit. By walking on the same spot over and over again, footprints knead the design into the ground and make imprint. A place on earth has been marked by humans through a collective repetitive act: could that be enough? All monocursal labyrinths that have been recorded are drawn here. The taxonomy has been extended to include new designs that set in motion slightly different spatial configurations of people: at one moment you walk encircled by others…time passes…and then it is you who are doing the enveloping. An architectural plan is formed that both gives and takes.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

“OUTER SPACE” # 1 – The Arsenale. Astroballon 1969 Revisited Feed Back Space by Coop Himmelb(L)au (Vienna). Enter into the giant, inflatable and transparent “brain”, grab hold of the handles, and see your own heartbeat come into view on giant screens above your head, while your blood pressure swirls on LED screens. The amplified sound that seems to emanate from your body fills the space around you. If you concentrate hard enough, you can change these rhythms and perhaps entrain the biology of the spectators around you. Based on an experiment Coop Himmelb(L)au imagined in 1969 but was unable to realize with the then available technology, the “Feedback Space” is meant as a prototype for a room that has no clear boundaries, and in which technology allows us to change our environment. The architectural object becomes a way of communicating directly from body to body. In the end, as the architects say, “The city beats like a heart.” “Our architecture has no physical ground plan, but a psychic one,” they continue, “Walls no longer exist. Our spaces are pulsating balloons. Our heartbeat becomes space, our face is the façade.”

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

“OUTER SPACE” #2 - Uneternal City: Superstar project by MAD architectural Office (Beijing). Uneternal City is a specific section dedicated to the city of Rome. Thirty years after Rome Interrupted, Aaron Betsky asked twelve Italian and international design studios to re-imagine the city of Rome.

Superstar a Mobile China Town. China Towns are out of date. They are historical theme parks, struck in the corner of every city, the same the world over. They have nothing to do with China today, and even less to do with China tomorrow. Superstar is a China Town for the future. It is an explosion, a symbol, 1000 meters tall, hovering above the city. It is not limited to one time or place: it can travel around the world, following the fortunes of the ailing world economy. It is technological and natural, futuristic and human, all at the same time. It is a dream that’s home to 15000 people. It is impossible. It is going to happen. Superstar’s first destination will be the suburbs of Rome. This anonymous suburban sprawl will be transformed, exposed to the energy, vision and authentic community of the star. Superstar will provide a new future for the Eternal City.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

Photograph courtesy Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

“OUTER SPACE” # 3 – The Arsenale – Hall of Fragments by David Rockwell with Casey Jones + Reed Kroloff. The Rockwell Group, in collaboration with Jones + Kroloff, designed Hall of Fragments, the entrance installation to the main exhibition, at the Arsenale, for the 11th annual Venice Architecture Biennale. Passage through the installation disengages visitors from the bricks and mortar of Venice and connects them to the alternative world of “Architecture Beyond Building” through an immersive and interactive environment constructed from iconic film. “We built the immersive environment out of images from iconic films and present them so that the visitor’s behavior influences the cinema experience: the motion of the visitors affects the sound and imagery on two curving screens in a real-time simulacrum of the feedback loop between cinema and architecture.” the Rockwell Group.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

ENVIRONMENT # 1 – The U.S.A. Pavilion. Into the Open: Positioning Practice. The exhibition Into the Open: Positioning Practice was commissioned by William Menking and co-curatored with Aaron Levy and Andrew Strum. It explores how architects, urban researchers, and community activists are meeting the challenges of creating new work in response to contemporary social conditions and addresses factors challenging traditional methods of architecture, such as shifting socio-cultural demographics, changing geo-political boundaries, uneven economic development, and the explosion of migration and urbanization. At the same time, it will advocate for an expanded conception of architectural practice and responsibility. The sixteen practitioners included, all of whom actively engage communities in their work, demonstrate multifaceted responses to social and environmental issues.

The entrance to The American Pavilion. The noted chef and restaurateur, Alice Waters, based in Berkeley, California, responded to the lack of nutritious food served in many public schools by developing the Edible Schoolyard, a project begun in a San Francisco Middle School, through which young students plant and tend a garden and use its produce to prepare their lunches and snacks. Through the project students learn about the origins of the foods they consume, principles of ecology and a healthy respect for living systems. Working in cooperation with the Yale Sustainable Food Project, the U.S. Pavilion has developed a model garden based upon principles of the Edible Schoolyard, complete with instructions and signage made by these young California students.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

ENVIRONMENT # 2 – The Arsenale. Towards Paradise – Gustafson Porter and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol. Towards Paradise, is the first major landscape installation featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale. The garden is conceived as a contemporary allegory in the broadest sense. It takes the visitor on a journey through earthly dilemmas, evoking what has been lost and what can be gained. Situated at the end of the Arsenale, on the grounds of a former a nunnery, the visitor passes through an ivy tunnel and enters a large space; an illustration of the abundance of the plant world’s earthly and aesthetic delights. Rows of plants drooping with fresh fruits and vegetables invite the visitor to be aware of the abundance around them. Benches are placed throughout for people to sit, and absorb this sensory experience: smelling, seeing, and touching the lushness around them. The rectilinear layout is reminiscent of the vegetable and flower allotment gardens that once existed on this site. The garden seeks to be a place for conversation, where one can tell or hear a story; a very colorful, dense and richly textured space. This is a place of sustenance for the body and the soul, a place where each visitor is, invited to reflect on the abundance in his or her own life.

The Landscape design team. Maria Cornego, Shannon Nichol, Neil Porter, Mary Bowman and Jennifer Guthrie of Gustafson Porter and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

copyright by Manfredi Bellati

ENVIRONMENT # 3 - The Japanese Pavilion. Extreme Nature: Landscape of Ambiguous Spaces by Junya Ishigami. Ishigami’s greenhouses, outside The Japanese Pavilion, are not equipped with air control systems and are not sealed off from the outside by a strong barrier, so they do not create a perfect artificial environment. The weakness of the barrier results in an ambiguous mixing of elements from the internal and external environment. With the help of botanist Hideaki Ohba, Ishigami aims at presenting a variety of plant life that creates a slight disturbance in the landscape of the park. At first glance, the resulting landscape seems to be ordinary, but we believe this is an extremely progressive approach to the natural environment.

copyright by Manfredi Bellati

The Architect – Junya Ishigami. The inside of The Japanese Pavilion is nearly empty, revealing the beauty of its original space. The greenhouses scattered around it give the outside space the atmosphere of an interior landscape. The architecture is not given the definite qualities of a physical object and there is no dualistic relationship between inside and outside. Nor is the outside space perceived as a void. The Japanese Pavilion itself is made to appear as an artificial environment or an element of topography.

A detail. Delicate pencil drawings traced directly onto the walls, inside The Japanese Pavilion, looked like lace from far away.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

photograph courtesy The German Pavilion

ENVIRONMENT # 4 – The Germany Pavilion. 080 Technical Paradise by Tom Matton. The desire to escape reality and return to a paradisiacal condition is as old as humankind itself. To at least temporarily satisfy this desire, architects around the world are increasingly creating artistic paradises, often in the most inhospitable places. The construction and maintenance of these paradises is attended by immense resource consumption and destruction of natural landscapes, both of which worsen the climate situation. This, in turn, leads to a need for ever-more technically manufactured paradises, which are, accordingly, erected; an inverted “perpetuum mobile” had been born. Already today, neither the Tree of Knowledge nor even a simple apple tree could grow without human assistance in those regions where the biblical paradise stood. Tom Matton visualizes this need for pro-vision and care in his installation of fifty apple trees and supply units, entitled, 080 Technical Paradise, implicitly posing the question of how things will go on: will the elite technical paradises that strengthen global disparities grow stronger and more pervasive, or will we realize that our only hopes for a new Eden is the creation of global equilibrium?

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

WOOD # 2 – The entrance to the Giardini. Interbreeding Field – project: Somewhere Out There in The Venice Garden by Li H. Lu. Interbreeding Field conceives how new structures combine with old ones to produce a new kind of utilization and function, thus developing a relationship of dependence between the new installation and its external environment. This is not simply a question of form, but rather a question of how to define the character and scope of the space between old and new. Interfering in architecture represents the production of a new life form, and is a phenomenon that has evolved through conversing with the surrounding environment, not by simply copying and transplanting past results. We believe that both interbreeding and interfering emphasizes the fact that people in an architectural environment are in a status of constant instability, spiel, participation and uncertainty.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

WOOD # 3 – The Italian Pavilion. Masters of the Experiment by Herzog & De Meuron with Ai Weiwei. At the entrance of The Italian Pavilion in the Giardini is an imposing installation of bamboo chairs that are placed along a framework of bamboo poles Called Master of Experiment this massive installation is by architects, Herzog and De Meuron with Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei. During the first few days of the Biennale, the installation was a work in progress, allowing visitors to watch the construction by traditional Chinese builders.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

WOOD # 4 – The Russian pavilion. Beyond Building by Nikolay Polissky. The front and the back of The Russian Pavilion houses Nikolay Polissky’s Beyond Building structures. Polissky is a unique master of Russian land art and his striking revolution in Russian art involves a hybrid of conceptualism and folk craft. His absurdist performers are simple peasants, the inhabitants of the village of Nikola-Lenivets. Thus he combines the conservatism that is traditional for part of the Russian intelligentsia (the retreat to the country village, to nature, away from temptations of the city) with the logic of the avantgarde performance and conceptualism. It is important that all this takes place on the basis of an architectural utopia. The Russian utopian consciousness is today temporarily living beyond architecture: it has set off for the countryside and taken up residence in the landscape.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

Photograph courtesy Avatar Architecture and Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia

“NUTRITION” # 1 – The Italian Pavilion. The Edible Edifice by Avatar Architettura. Eating, sleeping, breathing and protection from the elements will no longer be acquired privileges in exchange for money, but they will become daily actions that everyone can accede to naturally. The waste products from our ways of life will be gradually reused, recycled and reabsorbed back into the system.

A detail. A detail of The Edible Edifice installation by Avatar Architettura. Architecture and nutrition, the roof and food, for so long distinct, will come together to form a single informal lifestyle. Men and Women will re-acquire the means to make their house and grow their food in quantities sufficient to survive an entire lifetime.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BYOND BUILDING

“NUTRITION” # 2 – Uneternal City: Rome Limited project by BIG – Bjarke Ingles Group (Copenhagen). Uneternal City is a specific section dedicated to the city of Rome. Thirty years after Rome Interrupted, Aaron Betsky asked twelve Italian and international design studios to re-imagine the city of Rome.

BIG - Bjarke Ingles Group - Rome Limited. Luminous maps packaged as pizzas. Today the original boundary of the Nolli map is dwarfed by the size of the metropolitan region. The Google Earth image of Rome is dominated by vast suburban areas, new towns and sprawling developments, creating equally vast areas of urban void. If the Nolli map was famous for the image of the city defined by the quality of it’s leftovers, the Google Earth image reveals a region dominated by leftovers with no apparent qualities. On a regional scale Rome is hardly distinguishable from any other metropolitan region in Europe. The sprawling developments slowly eat into listed landscapes and animal habitats, creating a bloated region with a massive ecological footprint. Paradoxically the urban leftover is now the problem rather than the quality o Rome. What if we could re-create the qualities of the Nolli map on a regional scale?

A detail. The packaging of the Google Earth Rome “Pizza” map.

Contessanally tip: click on any photo to enlarge it.

VENICE: 11th Biennale of Architecture: OUT THERE: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND BUILDING

“NUTRITION” # 3 - The Czech and Slovak Republic Pavilion. The Sideways, Parallel Ways and Worlds, installation in the Czech and Slovak Pavilion, created by Zerozero Untd, shows a row of identical fridges that contain various foods based on the social identity of the inhabitants of the apartment or houses. “In the last months, we have looked into the homes of our friends, their friends, and friends of their friends…finally reaching those totally unknown to us. We have been interested in the social, economic, and urban context of their lives, their customs, favorite foods, culinary recipes, etc. We have searched for the everyday and authentic. This survey probes into the lives of the people living around us, and contains information on diversity/similarity of lifestyle and attitudes, contexts and situations by introducing questions of local (Czech and Slovak) specificities in a global context as well as questions of tenability of such topics and the world as we know it today.” A statement by Zerozero Untd.

A detail. The inside of one of the refrigerators.

Venice: 11th International Architectural Biennale – Collateral Event.

Copyright Manfredi Bellati

Venice: 11th International Architectural Biennale – Collateral Event. Andrea Palladio and Contemporary Architects: Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher. To mark the 500th anniversary of Andrea Palladio’s birth Zaha Hadid and Patrick Schumacher have created Aura, which is installed at Villa Foscari, La Malcontenta, as part of the Venice Architecture Biennale. The installation is made of two sculptures Aura-S and Aura L, each are shown in separate frescoed rooms. Aura is an experiment in translating Villa Foscari’s Palladian design, which relies on a definite set of harmonic proportions, into a contemporary space whose elegance and dynamism is generated through a process defined by a non-linear set of rules elicited from Palladio’s theories.

Venice: 60th Anniversary of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

Venice: 60th Anniversary of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. A group of young designers, Sam, Marta, Francesca, Valentina and Carine at Fabrica, the Benetton Group’s communications research center, have designed a new collection of items for the museum shop of the Venice based Peggy Guggenheim Collection, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Who is Peggy is a mini collection of objects and accessories inspired by Peggy Guggenheim, a definitive figure in the history of art.

A detail. Underlining Peggy’s desire to explore new forms of art are a series of colored notebooks with figures, which seem to move and bags silk- screened with black and white photographed moments from her life. An elegant ceramic typewriter and secret container symbolize Peggy’s passion for letter writing, while two amusing ceramic bowls represent her love of lapdogs, her inseparable life companions.

Venice: LIFESTYLE - A private party for Italian film director Ermanno Olmi

Venice – lifestyle: A private lunch party for Italian film director Ermanno Olmi. Tai and Rosita Missoni hosted a lunch party during the Venice Film Festival, for friends on board their barge Timoteo in honor of the Italian film director, Ermanno Olmi who received the Lifetime Achievement Award, twenty years after his film, The Legend of the Holy Drinker won the Leone d’Oro prize there.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - getting there. We took the vaporetto number 2 to the island of San Giorgio from Piazza San Marco, where the Missoni barge Timoteo was anchored.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the guests. As soon as we got off the vaporetto we bumped into Ca Rezzonico’s president, Franca Coin and her good friend, cinema and costume historian, Deborah Nadoolman Landis, who was in Venice because her husband, John Landis was part of the jury for the Venice Film Festival, presided by Wim Wenders. The Academy Award nominated costume designer wrote the book, In Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design, published by Harper Collins.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the Boat. The Timoteo was anchored on the Island of San Giorgio. The boat was built in 1904 and is the last surviving Venetian transport barge. It was found in the 1980s by Tai and Rosita Missoni and it took various renovations to restore it to it’s former splendor.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - a detail. Guests on deck enjoy an apertivo.
Contessanally tip: click on any image to enlarge it.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - shoes. Shoes are left on the quayside on a bright colorful striped carpet before boarding the barge.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the Captain. Ennio Casson has been the captain of the Timoteo barge for two decades.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi. Venetian artist and designer Federica Marangoni arrives on board the Timoteo.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - a detail. Bright Indian bangles set the mood.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - mother and daughter. Cristina and Giannola Nonino.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi. Antonella Nonino.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - a detail. The back of Antonella Nonino’s Prada dress.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the host – Tai and his friends. Tai Missoni chats with psychoanalyst, Fulvio Scaparro and the guest of honor, the famous Italian film director, Ermanno Olmi.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the hostess – Rosita and her friends. Grappa matriarch, Giannola Nonino, Corriere della Sera journalist, Maria Louisa Agnese, Venetian artist and designer, Federica Marangoni sit with Rosita Missoni.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the aperitivo table: 1. Delicious nibbles are laid out on the drinks table: figs, salame, bacala mantecato (dried salted cod) on white polenta squares and radishes.

Note: the colorful flower printed tablecloth.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi – a detail of the aperitivo table: 2. A close up of some pepperoncini and mint wrapped in a Missoni Home Collection napkin sit on the drinks table.

Note: the colorful plastic glasses de rigueur on a boat.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - l’aperitivo: 3. Aged Parmiggiano Reggiano is great to nibble on while you sip your apperitivo.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the star chef and the hostess. Star owner/chef Ruggero of the Trattoria Gatto Nero, better known as Da Ruggero, on the island of Burano, chats with our hostess Rosita Missoni. Il Gatto Nero is one of Venice’s best seafood restaurants.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - a detail. Rosita Missoni always has the perfect accessories, note the sailing boat earings found at the Paris, Marche Aux Puces.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the author and journalist. The day after the lunch for Ermanno Olmi, journalist and author, Salvatore Giannella presented his latest book Voglia di Cambiare (The wish for Change) at the Festival di Letteratura di Mantova.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the hotelier. Camillo Guerra owns the Relais & Chateaux Hotel Il Melograno in Puglia where Ermano Olmi wrote probably his most important film “L’Abero degli Zoccoli” which translates as The tree of wooden Clogs. The film won fourteen awards incuding the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Cesar Award for Best Foreign Film. Il Melograno is a 17th century masseria or fortified farmhouse built originally as a defense against Saracen and Byzantine invaders.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - lunch - the centerpiece. Rosita Missoni made the centerpiece for the buffet table. The designer of the Missoni Home Collection is a master in “instant” decoration, in the early morning Rosita went to the Rialto food market to pick out the most attractive herbs, chili peppers and zucchini flowers to arrange on board the Timoteo.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - lunch. A buffet lunch was served below deck. The delicious home-style food was prepared by Ruggero, owner/chef of the Trattoria Gatto Nero on the nearby Island of Burano. Locally know as Da Ruggero, the trattoria is famous for it’s seafood.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - a detail of the table. A detail of the food on the table; grilled aubergines, pepperonata, sarde in saor, the popular Venetian, baccala mantecato (dried salted cod) and typical tiny brown shrimps called schie.
Contessanally tip: click on any photo for a better view.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - a plate full. A selection of the delicious food from the Gatto Nero in Burano. Polenta, grilled zucchine and cuttlefish, cherry tomatoes and sarde in saor; sardines marinated in organic onions, a classic Venetian appetizer.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - a detail. On one of the small table below deck, the catalogue of the exhibition, George Barbier (1882-1932): La Nascita del Deco which just opened at Palazzo Fortuny, until January 5th, 2009.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - behind the scenes. Nadia and Rossana help out in the galley kitchen.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi – a watercolor. Below deck a charming watercolor of the Missoni barge, Timoteo was painted by American guests.

Note: the trophies and the sailboat memorabilia.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi. Fashion designer, Paolo Negrato is enjoying a sabbatical break from fashion.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi. Alvise and Carla Alvera.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi. Deborah Nadoolman Landis left early with Franca Coin for a second lunch at the Lido with her husband John Landis and Wim Wenders, both members of the Jury for the Venice Film Festival.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - Mother and Daughter. Ermanno Olmi’s daughter and wife, Elisabetta and Loredana.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the Sbrisolona cake – 1. Missoni PR, the delightful, Maddalena Aspes brings the Sbrisolona cake up on deck.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the Sbrisolona cake - 2 The Sbrisolona cake didn’t last very long and was enjoyed by all the guests. The Sbrisolona cake is like a piece of crumble with almonds and pistachio nuts in this case and was made by Peck in Milan. This dry cake must not be cut but broken with the hands. It is a specialty of Mantova and similar to the rustic cakes of Veneto and Trentino.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - special Venetian biscuits. These Typical biscuits called Esse, from “S” shape, are a specialty of the Island of Burano.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi. Chiara and Antonella Nonino relax on the Missoni boat.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi. Luca Cendali is an architect and designer. Every year, Luca designs, at the Venini glassworks in Murano, a special decanter for the Nonino UE Cru Monovitigno Picolit collection for the Distillerie Nonino. Since 1998 he has been secretary of the Nonino Award, whose prestigious jury is presided by Ermanno Olmi.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the Grappa. No Italian meal is complete without a glass of grappa served after coffee. Naturally the grappa was provided by Giannola Nonino, who runs the family business. Nonino is the most famous Italian producers of grappa.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the fruit salad. Simple sliced peaches with mint, perfect in hot weather.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the ice cream. The ginger ice cream with chocolate chips comes from the best chocolate boutique in Venice called, VizioVirtu. Mariangela also makes delicious chocolate and fruit sorbets, as well as, unusual ice cream flavors like saffron and amaretto or Sicilian orange with bergamot.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi. Maria Luisa Agnese enjoys the last quiet moments before going back to work at the Venice Film Festival, which she was covering for the Corriere della Sera.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi. Don’t forget your shoes. Fulvio Scaparro is retrieving his shoes and socks before going home.
Contessanally tip: click on any photos to get a better view.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - boating shoes. The correct shoes to wear on a boat, stripped plimsoles from Compagnie Francaise de L’Orient et de la Chine and the classic men’s Friulane slippers, which can be found on a stall on the Rialto Bridge in Venice.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the party is over 1. Going home by water taxi. The Nonino and the Olmi families share a water taxi back to the Lido.

Lifestyle: Missoni party for Ermanno Olmi - the party is over 2. Going home by vaporetto. The breathtaking view of Palazzo Ducale and Piazza San Marco taken from the vaporetto.