out and about :: venice

I was very lucky to be invited to Venice recently for Foscarini‘s Milan preview. While you could be forgiven for confusing parts of many European cities, Venice is uniquely Venice, so it was a real delight to spend some time there. Even our transport to meetings was by boat! I had a spare hour or two and managed to squeeze in a little exploration of this watery city (- and I don’t just mean the canals – it absolutely chucked it down for most of my trip!). Here are a few of my favourite finds…

From top to bottom, left to right:

• Venice is spread across a group of 118 tiny islands in Northeastern Italy, separated by canals and linked by bridges, making views like this one commonplace.
• As well as the famous Peggy Guggenheim Collection (closed for my visit), there are lots of little independent art galleries – I spotted these paper boats in the window of the BAC Art Studio.
• Being somewhat of a book nerd, my heart skipped a beat at Palazzo Querini Stampalia‘s library, housing a collection of nearly 350,000 volumes – all accessible to the public. It is, according the founder’s wishes, open late at night and on public holidays, and I can report that it was well populated even at 10pm on a Wednesday.
• Next is my favourite of Foscarini’s new launches for Milan – Spokes, designed by Vicente Garcia Jimenez and Cinzia Cumini. I spotted the prototype in Brera in 2014, so it was really exciting to see it production-ready. LEDs in the top and bottom are served by electricity that runs through the shade itself.
• I had a good explore of Rialto Market, a fresh food market open every morning, except Sunday, in the heart of Venice. It’s been there since the 11th century and was once the principle trading centre for exotic goods coming straight in off the boats.  The only heartbreak of such a whirlwind trip was not being able to buy, cook and eat most of the things here!
• Il Prato specialises in Venetian handicrafts – everything is made using traditional techniques and high quality materials. The paper was an absolute delight.
• A coffee to warm up, dry off and check my trusty map – Venice is a very confusing city!
• Another snap from Rialto Market – it was lucky I’d had a good breakfast at the hotel before venturing out!
• Family-run spice shop Drogheria Mascari still stores everything in hand-labelled glass bottles, even the penny sweets.
• I loved this colourful glassware also from Il Prato – it’s handblown Murano glass.
• Another independent gallery, Venice Projects, promotes internationally recognised contemporary artists who have been in the Venice Biennale “or artists who have achieved similar stature,” providing them with the opportunity to explore a new medium – glass.
• The next three pics all come from stationery haven – Il Papiro. If you can’t make it all the way to Venice, they also have a shop in London’s Covent Garden.
• And finally, the highlight of my tour, Le Fócole, the workshop of master boat builder, Saverio Pastor. I was lucky enough to spend a little bit of time watching his team work, hand-crafting Venetian oars and fórcolas (the pivots that support the oars in Venetian rowing boats).

Further reading for the especially geeky:

• out and about :: the fiera edit
• out and about :: stockholm
• out and about :: twelve at stockholm furniture fair 2015
• out and about :: ambiente frankfurt