François Pinault Foundation: Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana, Venice

Architect: Tadao Ando
Text: Brigitta Bugya
Photos: F. Pinault Foundation

Venice has been successfully applying the strategy of „preservation and continuation”: besides conveying history, the town excellently functions as a contemporary art centre. By having hosted the François Pinault Foundation for Contemporary Art for three years now it supports arts with its institutional presence. Co-operation started by the inauguration of the centre housed in the building of Palazzo Grassi in 2006 and was accomplished by the reconstruction and remodelling of Punta della Dogana opened last summer.

Pinault commissioned Tadao Ando to reconstruct the 18th-century Baroque palace and the Japanese designer-architect saw a challenge in the tension between the atmospheric old structure and the spatial function of hosting progressive contemporary art. He performed his task by respecting the original building as much as possible, raising a white shell in front of the walls within the rooms. However, the follow-up of the project is more interesting from an architectural viewpoint: it was Tadao Ando again who established the conditions of a museum within the 17th-century walls of Punta della Dogana. This building was restored to its original condition to the full even though several architectural layers had been deposited on it through the centuries. Restored in the spirit of historic authenticity, the triangular structure was further developed by Ando in line with minimalism. In the row of the existing rectangular naves perpendicular to the point of the islet he closed or opened doors and passages reorganizing the spatial design, and placed a square built of concrete right in the centre of the building spanning the whole interior height. Even though he applied simple devices and means, this solution has proven to be influential. Its impact is intensified by the co-ordination of 17th-century brick and 21st-century raw concrete.

Architect: Tadao Ando
Fellow architects: Kazuyo Okano, Antoine Muller Moriya
Structure: Luigi Cocco
Client: François Pinault Foundation