Palazzo Grassi

Grassi Palace is a Venetian secular building, located in the St. Mark district and overlooking the Grand Canal. It is one of the most famous Venetian buildings, both as a venue for art exhibitions and last patrician palace overlooking the Grand Canal before the collapse of the Venetian Republic. The building was purchased in stages by the Grassi family. The circumstances of its construction remain unknown: it is supposed to date back to 1748. After various property, Giancarlo Stucky rearranged the building and valorized the frescoes by Giambattista Canal, finally transferred from the Main Ballroom at the Great Hall. In 2005, the French entrepreneur François Pinault bought Grassi Palace to expose inside the rich private collection of modern and contemporary art owned by him, entrusting the preparation of the famous Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Marked by two large facades, Grassi Palace is distinguished by the incredible amount and for its candor. The main facade, in Neoclassical style, hides a plant all the more complex and spectacular: the center, opens a colonnaded courtyard similar to Corner Palace, which divides the property in two blocks, one in the front, four side rooms and a lounge center and a magnificent staircase decorated by Michelangelo Morlaiter and Fabio Canal. The main front is entirely covered in Istrian stone and respect traditional tripartite arrangement: windows concentrated in a polifora in each of the main floors, separated by smooth pilasters culminating in Corinthian and Ionic capitals. The portal is water, divided into three holes, like a triumphal arch. The front side, equally impressive, mimics the main one. Inside are housed the François Pinault Foundation and Collection, one of the five collections of modern and contemporary world's largest, consisting of paintings, sculptures, photographs and videos belonging to the artistic movements of the Arte Povera, Minimalism, the Post-minimalism and Pop Art.