Latest news with #Dorsoduro
Asharq Al-Awsat
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Scaffolding Goes up in Venice to Save Banksy's Migrant Mural
Scaffolding went up in Venice on Tuesday to restore a mural by the elusive street artist Banksy that had appeared on the side of a 17th century building in the lagoon city six years ago. "Migrant Child" shows a boy wearing a lifejacket and holding a pink flare, representing the artist's support for migrant sea rescue charities. But being exposed to Venice's notorious humidity and painted on the canal-facing side of a crumbling palazzo, it was in danger of fading into oblivion. The building, unoccupied when Banksy worked on it, was bought last year by an Italian bank that is now funding its entire restoration, mural included. Banca Ifis is planning to turn the Palazzo San Pantalon into an exhibition space linked to the Venice Biennale art fair, it said in a statement. The three-story building is in the Dorsoduro neighborhood, near Venice's main university. The well-known Zaha Hadid Architects studio is working on the renovation project.
Reuters
20 hours ago
- Business
- Reuters
Scaffolding goes up in Venice to save Banksy's migrant mural
VENICE, June 17 (Reuters) - Scaffolding went up in Venice on Tuesday to restore a mural by the elusive street artist Banksy that had appeared on the side of a 17th century building in the lagoon city six years ago. "Migrant Child" shows a boy wearing a life jacket and holding a pink flare, representing the artist's support for migrant sea rescue charities. But being exposed to Venice's notorious humidity and painted on the canal-facing side of a crumbling palazzo, it was in danger of fading into oblivion. The building, unoccupied when Banksy worked on it, was bought last year by an Italian bank that is now funding its entire restoration, mural included. Banca Ifis ( opens new tab is planning to turn the Palazzo San Pantalon into an exhibition space linked to the Venice Biennale art fair, it said in a statement. The three-story building is in the Dorsoduro neighbourhood, near Venice's main university. The well-known Zaha Hadid Architects studio is working on the renovation project.
Condé Nast Traveler
08-05-2025
- Condé Nast Traveler
How Overtourism is Sinking Venice
Transcript [Narrator] This is Venice. It's the city where I was raised and have lived for over 35 years. But there's a significant problem facing Venice, over tourism. Over 5.7 million tourists traveled to Venice last year, about as three times more tourists than residents on average per day. Over-tourism can add to high housing costs, infrastructure strain and the loss of local residents and culture. I've seen tourism transform my city and I'm going to find out what Venice is at risk of losing and meet three local businesses who are keeping Venice alive. [upbeat music] But first I'm headed to the Dorsoduro neighborhood where you can still buy produce from a boat like back in the old days. The city of Venice is made up of over 120 small islands with at least 170 canals connected by over 400 bridges. And that means that life here is a bit different from other places. I'm meeting Matteo Secchi, a lifelong Venetian activist at El Squero for espresso. Two coffee please. So we lose 20 habitants per week. We are not a city anymore, we are like a small village. Venice was one of the biggest city of Europe in the Middle Age. After Paris and Naples, Venice was the most populated. The city is changed because there's less Venetians every day and more tourists. The balance is different. [Narrator] What are your favorite things about Venice? No cars and our simple life. We drink, we eat something and we talk. [Narrator] The restaurant overlooks Squero di San Trovaso, a boatyard for gondolas. Only a handful of Squeri are left in Venice. We like every kind of culture, but we don't wanna lose our culture and the Squero is part of our culture. This is one of the last one of the city. [Narrator] What happens at the Squero? They build the gondolas and the gondolas is a symbol of Venice. The tourists, if they love Venice, they have to help us protect Venice. The invitation to the tourists is go behind the postcard and get lost in the city because there's a lot of things you can discover and love it. [upbeat music] A maestro, I would say is like a conductor of an orchestra. My father says a jazz band because they improvise more. [Narrator] Elena and Margherita Micheluzzi are two sisters who left Venice but returned to keep their father's glass blowing legacy alive. But the Venetian glassblower is a species and extinction. In reality, it's always a team. It's the maestro and two assistants. They dance around the blowing pipe and glass and they switch positions. We're glass designers and we work with artisans in Murano. We work with in a furnace with a group of artisans and they are the real makers of glass. And our father has been working like this also since 25 years. But there are few artisans compared to the number of the ones that are retiring. The cost of gas, the fact that it's a very labor intensive job and like it's not being passed on as it was before from father to son. It's a world that it's shrinking, but there is a lot of attention and consciousness. So there is a way to preserve it. To keep it alive. To keep it alive. Tourists are really curious and they ask us a lot about the making of glass. Many people say there's like just a typical touristic little souvenirs, but there's not much artistic glass. So we like to stand out and show that you can do in Murano things that are not what you would expect. [Narrator] How can you tell real hand-blown glass from Murano versus many of the versions out there? On glassware, for example, you can tell from this little thing here, which is the blow pipe, the term that they use in Murano it's open by hand. [Narrator] See that's so interesting because I think if you didn't know, you might think that was a defect. [Elena] Another thing that you can see, it's when you don't have like a cut edge. It's smooth, but a little bit uneven. [Narrator] You can see it better here, the signature. [Elena] The name and the date as well. [Narrator] 'Cause each piece is unique. [Elena] We have to learn still, like it's five years that we started, so we hope that we will be able to carry on doing it. [upbeat music] [Narrator] Up the street, Sara Maestrelli runs a hotel committed to keeping Venetian craftsmanship alive. Sara, tell me a bit about the philosophy behind the design. We start thinking about the history of Venice and the fact that often a tourist will come to Venice, spend one night and kind of leave with a sensation that Venice is an amusement park stuck in the 17th century and that's just not true about Venice. And so we really wanted to celebrate Venice, even though we're a small hotel, in all of its eras. And what came out is kind of this eclectic mix of time periods. For example, this lady next to the theater makes these adorable key chains. We ended up doing a collaboration and doing custom key chains for. Oh, I love that. Pretty, yeah, wanna go see your room? [Narrator] I would love to. [upbeat music] This is probably the room I love the most. The most special thing for a Venetian is to hop on an Altane and have a privileged view of the city. The Altane, which are the wooden terraces that Venetians built on their rooftops. I feel this room is like a little Altane that you can sleep in and have this 360 degree view almost of the rooftops. [Narrator] You couldn't be anywhere else in the world. You really couldn't be. Venice is a city that deserves to be seen and loved and admired, but it also deserves time. It's very often lived as a touch and go a city. So a lot of the tourists that come to Venice think just coming, staying for a day, kind of checking that off the list. But that is no way of really getting in touch with the true Venice and the magic of Venice. What is important for the city, but also for the traveler that is visiting the city, is to dedicate it some time. [upbeat music] [Narrator] The city of Venice with its flood of crowds is perched precariously on the Venetian lagoon where the looming fret of actual floods has been staved off by a sea wall called MOSE. Venice has one of the world's most cutting edge flood technologies that took $5 billion and almost 20 years to build. A network of 78 gates located at the inlets of the Venetian lagoon rise from the seabed when an extremely high tide is predicted. Experts estimated that the MOSE flood walls would be raised about five times a year, but in the past two years, the walls have already been raised 49 times. I'm meeting Matteo Bisol, the wine maker at Venezia Vineyards on the island of Mazzorbo where they are making wine from an ancient flood resistant vine. So welcome to Venezia. Thank you, what a treat to be here. This is a very special vineyard. We are in the middle of the Laguna Venice. We are just half an hour from the city, but actually in the past, from here to Venice, it used to be three hour rowing. So the culture of these islands is very different from the culture of Venice itself. [Narrator] It's a different world. Yes. Do you know that also in San Marc Square, in the year 1,100, there was a vineyard. No way. Yeah, the history of Venezia started in 2001 when my father was visiting the island of Torcello and he noticed that inside a private garden there were few vines. So we discovered that Dorona, this gray variety with a unique DNA that was almost disappeared. So we took the cuttings and we were able to replant this vineyard in 2006. We used to think that the vines need to go deeper. [Narrator] Yeah. In the soil, but the vine is very smart, so in this case, the roots are spreading very horizontally and we live in the first part of the surface of the soil. So it's very shallow. The roots are very shallow. Yes, this is the type of soil that we have at Venezia. Look, so the plants are actually digging. [Narrator] In amongst shells. These are all shells of oysters, all these. [Narrator] And yet the grapes survive. [Speaker] Yes, because they adapted themselves for the centuries to survive exactly in this environment. And this is actually what makes the and then the wine of Venezia so special. [Narrator] Amazing. [upbeat music] So now it's time to go and taste this wine. Fantastic, music to my ears. [liquid pouring] So these are the Cicchetti from our. [speaking in foreign language] Which is the bistro we have here at Venezia. And it's the interpretation of the traditional Cicchetti of Venice that are smaller bites that usually you pair with the wine because we don't pair wine with the food. Other way around. This is a good example. This is the large mouth bass is similar to sea bass. We call it Boccalone. It's an invasive species of the Laguna Venice. A few years ago we decided to focus only on this invasive species because we want people to learn to eat what is actually frightening. [Narrator] I'm also very excited to try the wine. Yes. This is the Venusa, cheers. It's very interesting. It's very different from anything else. It's very elegant, it has a very unique character because actually this is a very unique vineyard. Have you ever seen a vineyard like that? No. [Speaker] This is the effect of salt which is in the soil, which is creating this difference. Can you tell me about the bottle? Because it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. This is a gold leaf that is made in Venice by the family Berta Battiloro. That they are hand beating the gold leaf and then in Murano is actually baked into the glass by another handcrafter family. [Narrator] That Micalusi glass they engrave in the same way. [Speaker] This is in our tradition of events. So what's more precious, the bottle or the wine? [Speaker] For me, always the wine. [Narrator] Always the wine. [Speaker] For me always the wine. [upbeat music] [Narrator] And I hear visitors to the vineyard can now actually stay on the island of Burano. Casa Burano, it's a different model, which is really interesting for Italy small villages, there's no big buildings. There are all small houses and we have 13 rooms, so in five different houses around the village. So we don't want the tourists to be all in the same building with the tourists, but we want to be more of a mix and integrated in the local environment of Burano. There is a certain type of tourism that is actually helping Venice to keep its tradition alive. That is thanks to tourists that are still using the gondola that existed, the last square Squero in Venezia. The tradition of building the gondola is still alive. And the same with our wines, with the gold beaters, with the Murano hand crafters. I really think that people that are choosing a certain type of Venice and a certain type of tourism are actually keeping this city alive. [upbeat music]
