Museo del Vetro

As an industrial city, home to wealthy merchants and craftsman, Venice excelled in glassmaking, a craft dating back to the Roman Empire, and yet still forms a large part of Venice’s culture and industry. Salt was a major currency in Venice and Southern Europe both in its production and trade. Even after the fall of the Republic, salt warehouses were still actively used. The Magazzini del Sale is one of few remaining examples of industrial life in 15th century Venice and currently hosts a number of secondary venues for art and culture.

This design aims to bring into the city a public building that is also a working building. The glassmaking that exists (almost too casually) in pockets of Murano can coalesce in a building with greater connectivity to actual Venice. The roughness and robustness of the salt warehouse is an ideal partner to the heat, fragility and physicality that glassmaking demands.