Venice, Palazzina Masieri will be reopened to the public. Maintenance work kicks off

The Angelo Masieri Foundation recently began maintenance work on the Palazzina Masieri, the building on the Grand Canal famous for its design by Frank Lloyd Wright, which was never realized, and for its current interior layout designed by Carlo Scarpa. Udine architect Angelo Masieri died tragically in 1952 in the United States, where he was working with Frank Lloyd Wright. The great American master’s undertaking to design a house in Volta de Canal for Masieri and his young wife turned, by the family’s will, into the Masieri Memorial, a foundation/forest for scholars and students of architecture. The project never obtained the necessary permits and was not built. In 1968, a new commission was entrusted to Carlo Scarpa; amid opposition and difficulties, the Venetian architect was approved only in 1973 for a project that kept the facade on the Grand Canal unchanged (as per the prescriptive constraint), while revolutionizing the interior. At the behest of the Masieri family, since its inception the Foundation has linked its name to theIuav University of Venice: in fact, the presidency of the institution rests with Rector Benno Albrecht.

The interventions are made possible through a partnership with the grouping between Heritage Asset Management, a spin-off approved by Iuav University led by Roberta Bartolone and Giulio Mangano, and Galerie Negropontes, a French art gallery founded in Paris in 2011 and directed by Sophie Negropontes. The Foundation’s partners are committed to financing, designing and executing the building’s conservative restoration and plant improvement works, as well as presenting a cultural project in line with the Foundation’s statutory goals.

With the reopening of the building, starting with the next Art Biennale, a program of initiatives will be initiated with public access. Visits open to the public are planned on predetermined monthly dates. On Angelo Masieri’s birthday (Dec. 6), starting next year, an annual event will be promoted to celebrate the figure of the architect and the history of the Foundation, in collaboration with FAM and Iuav. On this occasion, cycles of lectures and debates will be organized on the themes of conservative restoration and the re-functionalization of historic buildings. There will be room for initiatives to promote the knowledge and appreciation of the works of Carlo Scarpa, as well as the organization of small chamber music concerts inspired by the relationship between music and architecture. A pilot project is planned to promote the permanent reactivation of the guest quarters on the second floor of the Palazzina. By its bylaws, the Angelo Masieri Foundation “has the mission to help and assist Italian and foreign students, undergraduates or recent graduates interested in studies and research on architecture, the cities of Veneto and Friuli, through activities to support studies.”

Photo by John Volpato

Venice, Palazzina Masieri will be reopened to the public. Maintenance work kicks off

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