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    Marcante-Testa blends “unique characteristics of Venetian identity” for Ca’ Select bar and distillery

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    Italian studio Marcante-Testa has turned an industrial building in Venice into the canal-side Ca’ Select bar, visitor centre and production facility.

    Set alongside a small canal in the Cannareggio district of Venice, the bar and distillery belong to the company behind Select Aperitivo – the main ingredient of a Venetian Spritz.
    Ca’ Select bar is located on a canal in Venice”The history of Select is closely tied to that of Venice, where the brand was founded in 1920,” said Marcante-Testa.
    “Starting from this awareness, the mother company Gruppo Montenegro commissioned the architects Andrea Marcante and Adelaide Testa to formulate a reinterpretation of the unique characteristics of Venetian identity, reviving one aspect of the city’s past.”
    The space includes a Select Aperitivo barMarcante-Testa led the conversion of the former metal workshop into a bar and events space, spanning 690 square metres. Throughout the bar and production spaces, glass and ceramic details were chosen to highlight traditional Venetian crafts.

    The elongated space was split linearly into three zones, with the bar placed at the front of the building so it can be accessed from the canal by a corridor clad in white and red Zellige tiles made by Mosaic Factory.
    The bar is wrapped in blue wavy glassAt the centre of the space is a freestanding bar wrapped in blue wavy glass “in the Murano tradition”, created by the Wonderglass company to recall the waves of the nearby lagoon.
    The space features three handmade mosaics made from tiles fired in the historic Fornace Orsoni and informed by the sketches of Spanish designer Mariano Fortuny, who was a long-term resident of Venice.

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    Venetian seminato terrazzo flooring with red glass and blue sodalite marble inlays was used to unify the spaces, running from the entrance through the bar to the production area.
    Separated from the bar by a large curtain is a seating area furnished with steel-framed sofas alongside armchairs upholstered in reds and pinks as a nod to the aperitivo’s colour. This area will also be used as an events space.
    An events space is located next to the barThe event space has views through a red-tinted glass wall to the production facility at the rear of the building.
    Here, the maceration of the herbs and spices used to make the distinctive aperitivo takes place.
    The distillery is separated from the public areas by a glass wallThe final space in Select Aperitivo’s building is nestled above the entrance corridor. Accessed by steps to the side of the entrance is a small visitor centre with exhibits curated by Turin-based Studio Fludd.
    It contains seating and exhibits that aim to tell the story of the aperitivo brand, which was established in 1920.
    An exhibition space is located above the entranceSelect Aperitivo hopes that the bar and visitor centre will continue to reinforce the brand’s historic links to the city.
    “Ca’ Select represents a fundamental step in our multi-year plan to consolidate the brand and aims to strengthen the link with the city of origin,” said Marco Ferrari, CEO of Gruppo Montenegro, which owns the brand.
    “It is no coincidence that we have decided to bring the heart of Select’s production here, to enhance the local culture starting with the valuable architectural elements that enrich the space.”
    The building also houses a Select Aperitivo production facilityOther recently completed bars that have been featured on Dezeen include a brewery in a former Copenhagen slaughterhouse and a bar in Calgary topped with plywood barrel vaults.
    Project credits:
    Architectural project: Marcante-TestaInterior design project: Marcante-TestaProject and content management: Mindthegap StudioPlants and facilities design: Pgs Ingegneria – Studio AssociatoContent of the exhibition design: Studio FluddProduction coordination and executive production: Epica filmVisual identity project: Studio FluddBuilding works director: Valter Camagna, Andrea marcanteLocal architect: Stefano RomagnaProject manager: Roberta MiniciSafety manager and coordinator: Sebastiano CibienBuilding construction: Steelwood EngineeringPlant engineering work: Gruppo Frassati, Vem SistemiSet-up arrangements: Steelwood Rngineering, Gruppo Frassati, Amap, WonderglassLight design: Marcante-Testa with FlosDecorative lighting supplier: FortunyTechnical lighting supplier: FlosSystem integrator: Acuson, Red Group

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      Venice floodwaters inform two-tone interior of Warsaw bar Va Bene Cicchetti

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      Sea green floors and skirting tiles are contrasted against the all-red interior of this bar in Warsaw, Poland, which local studio Noke Architects has designed to recall the high waters of Venice.

      Billed as Poland’s first cicchetti bar – an Italian bar selling drinks alongside small plates of food – Va Bene Cicchetti is located in a huge Socialist Realist housing estate from the 1950s called the Marszałkowska Housing District.
      Va Bene Cicchetti is a bar in WarsawCustomers enter the bar via an arched doorway lined with antique mirrors. Inside, they are met by a huge red travertine counter with a large drinks cooler, which is hollowed out of the stone and filled with ice and bottles of prosecco.
      Most of the interior is rendered in warm hues of red and gold in a nod to the colours of the Venetian flag.
      But the floor, and everything up to about 20 centimetres in height, is finished in sea green to suggest the high waters of the Veneto region, locally known as acqua alta.

      Its interior was informed by Venice’s floodwatersSeveral times a year, when the tide in the Adriatic Sea rises, these floodwaters will cover streets and piazzas in Venice in a layer of water.
      To recreate this “flood effect” inside the interior of Va Bene Cicchetti, Noke Architects coloured the floors and skirting tiles, as well as the base of table legs, chairs and plinths in a watery shade of turquoise.
      Tables resemble Venice’s red-and-white striped mooring poles”We wanted the place to be unambiguously associated with Venice but we also wanted for this reference to be fresh and unique,” said Piotr Maciaszek, who co-founded Noke Architects alongside Aleksandra Hyz and Karol Pasternak.
      “We took inspiration from the colours of the Venetian flag, which dominate all finishings, and incorporated the acqua alta motif in the interior as an element of surprise.”
      Turquoise skirting tiles run along the perimeter of the roomThe scheme is completed with glass lamps that resemble rippling water and bespoke furniture pieces including tables that pay homage to the red-and-white striped mooring posts found in Venice’s canals.
      Taking over an entire wall of the bar is an intricate mosaic made from reclaimed materials including glass panes from the Murano glass factory in Venice and fragments of wine bottles from Va Bene Cicchetti’s sister restaurant Va Bene.

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      The mural depicts the bar’s owners and their dog Koko enjoying wine and food at a table in Venice.
      “Veneto is where the famous Murano glass and antique mirrors are manufactured,” Maciaszek explained.
      “The region is famous for its ceramics and wine. We came up with the idea to use mini pieces of Venice as the building blocks of our artwork. Mosaic was the perfect solution for this.”
      The bar is centred on a red travertine counterThe bar’s basement level is completely saturated in the same greeny-blue hue as the floors upstairs to create the impression of being underwater.
      Bathrooms, meanwhile, are finished in black and white stripes and topped with a red ceiling in a reference to the uniforms worn by Venetian gondoliers.
      An intricate mosaic covers an entire wall of the barPolish illustrator and graphic designer Ola Niepsuj was responsible for creating the bar’s visual identity, which depicts the Lion of Saint Mark – a winged lion that represents the patron saint of Venice and is found on buildings across the city.
      At Va Bene Cicchetti, this motif can be found in the form of door handles and the neon light above the entrance.
      The bar’s basement level is covered in sea green tilesElsewhere in Poland, local practice Paradowski Studio recently channelled the glamour of Kraków’s interwar cafes and the clean functionalism of its mid-century modern cinemas for a hotel renovation.
      The Puro Stare Miasto hotel is located next to Kraków’s historic old town and spans 138 rooms alongside an extensive open-plan reception, lobby space and restaurant.
      The photography is by Piotr Maciaszek.

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      Space Caviar creates “liquid landscape” inside Uzbekistan pavilion at Venice Art Biennale

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      Italian studio Space Caviar has constructed Dixit Algorizmi: The Garden of Knowledge, an indoor garden with reflective steel steps for the Uzbekistan pavilion at this year’s Venice Art Biennale.

      The installation at the Uzbekistan National Pavilion mirrors the interiors of the Quarta Tesa, an old shipbuilding warehouse at the Arsenale – one of the international contemporary art exhibition’s two main sites.
      Dixit Algorizmi: The Garden of Knowledge is the country’s first pavilion at the Venice Art BiennaleThe layout of the 500-square-metre garden is informed by the garden at the House of Wisdom, an academic centre in 9th-century Baghdad where medieval scholars, including the renowned Persian mathematician Muhammad al-Khwarizmi, studied.
      Visitors at the 59th Venice Art Biennale can walk across the shiny floor of the installation and sit on glossy steps around what resemble traditional water basins.
      Space Caviar drew on the forms of historic Islamic gardens”Gardens are very important in the tradition of Islam and the Arabic tradition in many parts of Central Asia,” said Joseph Grima, co-founder of architectural research studio Space Caviar.

      “While today we’re accustomed to thinking of buildings and enclosed spaces such as research labs and universities as the space for the production of knowledge, in the days of al-Khwarizmi, gardens were typically the points of encounters, of discussion,” Grima told Dezeen.
      The pavilion is inside the Venice ArsenaleSpace Caviar constructed the interiors of Uzbekistan’s first pavilion at the Biennale in Venice from pine wood and sheets of stainless steel, which Grima chose to create the illusion of water.
      The material choice also means that when the installation is dismantled at the end of the seven-month-long Biennale, the steel can be melted and turned back into metal sheets once again.
      Stainless steel covers the floor”Stainless steel was chosen to create the effect of walking on water — one of the perceptions that you have when you are inside the pavilion is that you are in a liquid landscape,” Grima explained.
      “This was one of the effects that we wanted to achieve with the pavilion, we wanted to create a landscape that was kind of a miracle, that suggested a dream more than a literal garden,” he added.
      “We see it as a technologically augmented landscape in that sense.”

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      Throughout the Venice Art Biennale, the Uzbekistan pavilion will host a program of workshops and public events on the history of technological development in art with digital artists such as Andrés Reisinger.
      Visitors will also be able to listen to Uzbek piano compositions against a backdrop of floral sculptures and hanging clouds of sea lavender by Berlin-based Studio Mary Lennox.
      The steel will be melted into sheets and reused when the pavilion is dismantled”We tried to transform our pavilion into an Islamic garden so that visitors could sit by the water, listen to various sounds, smell the air and enjoy the botanic installation,” said Gayane Umerova, executive director of the art and culture development foundation under the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
      “The Islamic garden is a place of rest and reflection par excellence, it provides means for contemplation through sensory experience – aromas, plants, water,” she told Dezeen.
      “Undulating waters and ambiguous lines together with plants and smooth surfaces offer a meditative yet contemporary attitude to the interior of the pavilion, bringing together traditions and new technologies,” she continued.
      Bunches of sea lavender hang from the ceilingGenoa-based Space Caviar was founded by Joseph Grima and Tamar Shafrir in 2013. The studio focuses on the intersection between design, technology, critical theory and the public space.
      Previous projects have included an algorithmic journalism machine that produces magazines on the fly and an exhibition at Biennale Interieur that explored how perspectives on the home have changed over time.
      Last year Grima took part in the Dezeen 15 virtual festival, where he proposed a new type of non-extractive architecture that conserves the earth’s resources.
      Photography is by Gerda Studio.
      Project credits:Curation: Space Caviar and Sheida GhomashchiCommissioner: Gayane Umerova
      Venice Art Biennale takes place from April 23 to November 27 in Venice. See Dezeen Events Guide for up-to-date details of architecture and design events around the world.

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