Fondaco dei Tedeschi: True Soul of the Place

Fondaco dei Tedeschi is located on the Grand Canal in Venice. For many years it served as a beautiful backdrop for the Rialto Bridge on most of touristic photos. This spectacular Renaissance palace was built in 1228 and served at that time simultaneously as a dwelling, a place for commerce and a warehouse for the rapidly growing community of German merchants in the city. In 1508 after the devastating Venetian fire of 1505 the building was rebuilt according to Girolamo Tedesco. Since then, the building changed its appointment several times, until it returned to its original commercial function. Actually, the word “fondaco” is Arabic and is translated as a store-house. In 2012, Benetton signed an agreement to restore the palace in order to open a shopping center with shops of world luxury brands, which happened on October 1, 2016.

In 1508 after the restoration of the Palace was rebuilt according to Girolamo Tedesco’s design and decorated with frescoes by Tizian and Giorgione, most of which unfortunately did not survive due to climatic conditions: high humidity level and constant exposure to salt air. Survived fragments of paintings are kept today in the palace of Ca D’Oro. With the fall of the Most Serene Republic of Venice (Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia) in 1797, the palazzo of Fondaco dei Tedeschi like virtually all the key buildings in the city was abandoned and used inappropriately. With the coming to power Mussolini for many years the building, which had been roughly restored by using concrete, functioned as a post office and only two of its floors remained in use.

In 2008 another turning point in the biography of the Venetian palazzo was coming as it was bought by Benetton for a sum of 53 millions euro who decided to make a shopping center out of it, inviting world-known Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to implement this ambitious project. In parallel, a deal was concluded with the Hong Kong retailer of luxury goods – DFS, whose main area of activity is sale of Duty Free products. They got a long-term lease of Fondaco dei Tedeschi. The company was actively exploring European market and was looking for potentially interesting area for investment but in every significant city successful large shopping centers were already developed and only in Venice was still a lack of complex with various branded goods collected under one roof.

Full content of this issue you can read here

The full version of the article can be read in our printed issue, also you can subscribe to the web-version of the magazine

 Text: ELISABETH KLEPANOVA
Illustrative materials provided by OMA