Pieces of Venice

The most beautiful city in the world, the one that everyone dreams of visiting at least once in their life. The Pieces of Venice project was born in Venice, a magical place that has always inspired artists and architects.

Today there are some important names in the Italian design market who, together with the three partners Luciano Marson, Karin Friebel and Luca Cerchier, develop a collection of objects with reused materials: “briccola” oak, larch from catwalks and disused wharves to give everyone the possibility of having a small piece of Venice in your hands.

The members of Pieces od Venice (from the left): Luciano Marson, Karin Friebel and Luca Cerchier

It is impossible not to love Venice, even if it has never been visited, because it is one of those places of such powerful beauty and a culture so cosmopolitan that everyone feels part of it.

And this is why the problems that afflict this city become issues which the entire world participates at with empathy: mass tourism, large ships, swell, high water.

Right: Pillbox: San Marco 4598 design Carlo Cumini 2017 | Left: Pillbox: San Polo 2012 design PoV Design Team 2017

A DESIGN PIECE OF VENICE

Saving Venice one piece at a time is the motto with which Pieces of Venice has chosen to face the challenge of creating new souvenirs, a memory, almost a simulacrum because in these objects there is the material which Venice is built on: wood!

The adventure begins with a request to Luciano Marson, an entrepreneur and designer with 3 “Compasso d’Oro” awards, to create furnishing elements using the re-used wood of the Venetian lagoon “briccole”.

“Briccola “(in Venetian bricoła) is a nautical structure used to indicate the waterways in the Venice lagoon.

But Luciano refuses, considering the proposal a further exercise in style that does not interest him: his relationship with Venice is deeper and leads him to try to realize a project capable of really contributing to the richness of the territory.

MORE THAN A PROJECT, A DREAM TO REALIZE 

Thus Pieces of Venice was born in 2017, a Benefit Company that entrusts the production of objects to the Cooperative Sociale Futura of San Vito al Tagliamento.

Swing: Dorsoduro 3136 design Baldessari and Baldessari 2017

Marson designs the first object, Elica: Dorsoduro 2, the result of the memory of a child’s play that Luciano made with the ice cream stick when he went on vacation in the colony in the summer. An example of self-production that becomes memory, an object to be transmitted that tells a story. The materials used today are the wharf larch and briccola oak.

Luciano Marson is one of the three members of Pieces of Venice together with Karin Friebel and Luca Cerchier.

This first project is followed by a collection involving some important Italian designers who have embraced the project: Paolo and Michela Baldessari, Mariapia Bellis, Patrizia Bertolini, Carlo Cumini, Giulio Iacchetti, Lorenzo Palmeri, Matteo Ragni, Marco Zito.

The objects in the Pieces of Venice collection, range from the most iconic, such as the “Streamboat” and the “Taxi” designed by Marco Zito, to those of everyday use such as the Carlo Cumini “Pillbox” and the “Walking Stick” designed by Giulio Iacchetti. There is the “Little Car” designed by Matteo Ragni, the “Fan” by Lorenzo Palmieri and the “Swing” by Baldessarri and Baldessarri.

And then ‘Oggetti da Compagnia’, a project by Mariapia Bellis that translates the 6 districts which Venice is divided into and the island of Giudecca into 4 Sounds and 3 Visions to remember the city animated by the noises and silences, the reflections and lights.

Company Items: 4 Sounds & 3 Visions design Mariapia Belliss 2017

Fun fact: every object, like any creation of Pieces of Venice, is associated with a place in Venice so as to share a journey of discovery through unusual points of the city.

PLACES OF CULTURE AS IDEAL PARTNERS

In just over a year, Pieces of Venice’s objects are on sale in some of the most beautiful places in Italy visited every day by the tourism that chooses the quality and culture of travel: in Venice at the bookshops of the Civic Museums of Venice , La Biennale di Venezia, Punta della Dogana, in the beautiful inner courtyard of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, in Udine at Robe di Casa, in Verona at the Galleria near the Arena, in Florence at Bottega Strozzi.

Pieces of Venice design objects at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, Venice.

Furthermore, the project was presented at the Milan Triennale in 2018 and was present at the 2019 edition of Milan Design Week.

We are waiting for news that the three partners still cannot reveal but it seems that in the fall there will be some nice surprises …

In the meantime all the design objects are on sale in the e-commerce www.piecesofvenice.it and at the retailers you find on the website.