Sir David Chipperfield, whose work includes the Neues Museum in Berlin, will oversee the multi-million pound renovation of the 16th century Procuratie Vecchie, which will be opened to the public for the first time in 500 years when the project is completed in 2020, while Sir David says: ‘It’s a piece of surgery’…
The Telegraph reports:
… The project is being financed by Assicurazioni Generali, one of the world’s biggest insurers, which occupied the building from 1832 until just a few months ago, when it transferred its offices elsewhere. The Procuratie Vecchie palazzo was built in the 1530s on the remains of an earlier building which burned down in a fire. The ground floor level consists of an arcade formed by 52 stone arches.
‘This is a building with a monumental presence in a monumental square which the whole world loves,’ said Sir David, an award-winning architect who has worked on high-profile projects in the UK, Germany and Italy. ‘It is part of the only big civic space in Venice. It’s got an amazingly theatrical presence.’ The logistical challenges of the work are immense – any old material removed from the building will have to be taken away in barges along Venice’s canals, while new material will have to be brought in the same way.
‘It’s a piece of surgery,’ said Sir David, whose work includes the Hepworth Wakefield gallery in Wakefield, West Yorks, the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, and the Neues Museum in Berlin.
Once the renovation is complete, the four-storey building will be used as a venue for art exhibitions, installations and seminars that will be open to the public, as well as a philanthropic institution to help vulnerable people including refugees.
