Title

Death in Venice23/08/2011

_ sailing vessel for domestic adventures... (between Venice and Istanbul)

Venice has always been a place where imagination and reality come together. Cosmopolitan city par excellence, since the 13th century it has been a departure point for innumerable travellers (from Marco Polo to the passengers on the Orient Express) but also a vital crossroads for cultures that moved from Central Europe to the East and vice versa.
Denigrated by the Futurists as a traditionalist symbol (Let’s Kill The Moonlight!) Venice is equally an ideal setting for the darkest side of existence, a fantastical stage for Carnival masks and the restless amorous adventures of Casanova.

Death in Venice is a kind of seat for the centre of a large room and it expresses the dynamic tension of the wind-filled sails of a vessel under way in the Mediterranean. The structure is in wrought and forged iron and the base in palisander. The capitonné upholstery (done in the traditional manner with strips, springs and wadding) is finished in fabric hand-woven on wooden looms. The great central wing, which divides the seat into two symmetrical parts, terminates in two elaborate elements in wrought iron (representing the Egyptian eye of Horus) which in turn bear two great oil lamps. The feet are in cast, silver-dipped bronze.
Death in Venice pays homage to Thomas Mann and Luchino Visconti.

Design 1990

MATERIALS

_ structure in wrought and forged iron
_ feet in cast, silver-dipped bronze
_ crosspieces in brass, turned on the lathe and silver-plated
_ oil lamps in iron, silver-plated brass and Murano glass
_ base in palisander
_ capitonné upholstered seat and backrest in handmade fabric