Monumental hall

The monumental hall on the ground floor of Palazzo Pisani connects the two famous inner courts to the water entrance. It is an environment that sits between the interior and the exterior: the hall is covered by a large ceiling over the majestic colonnade but is subject to weathering such as the high tide.

The hall is embellished by articulate chromatic coatings such as plasters reproducing a fake rustication, frames, marmorino stuccos and statues in Istria stone inside niches. Over the years the hall was used as storage and therefore never restored, even though it is such a fragile environment.

For this intervention we draw inspiration from the restoration techniques used in archeology, where the original old and fragile materials are exposed to the atmosphere. The awareness that the conservation won’t protect the hall from the inevitable weathering spoilage, guided our works. For this exact reason we implemented only conservative works, avoiding any integration, aiming to give the location a unity of reading and bring the expressiveness of its various parts back into balance.