Fashion designer Pierre Cardin has gone beyond the dress form to create Palais Lumière, a residential, hospitality, and shopping emporium planned for Venice. 5 miles from city center and twice as tall as St. Mark's belltower, at 60 stories, the building would be Venice's first skyscraper. Depending on who you talk to, it could revitalize a neglected neighborhood or is an eyesore that could accelerate the literal sinking of the city.
In other news, one loft plus two shipping crates equals a cool space, and check out neon post-modern interior design in New York. See the headlines after the jump.
• Will This Giant Glass Skirt By Pierre Cardin Be Venice's First Skyscraper? | Architizer
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(Image: via Architizer)
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1. Cardin is still alive? (Quick, when did he last produce a design collection? Wasn't he one of the designers who sold out to quite dreadful licensing agreements? Not a good track record...)
2. It is an atrocity.
I'm all for mixing new architecture with old, but this is not how to do it; it would completely dominate Venice, and destroy Venice's unique sense of place. Venice is a world heritage site! That building and the related complex belong in Dubai, as indicated in the article, and not in Venice.
This is so horrible, I can't find words to express how very horrible it is. It's a pustule on the beauty that is Venice. A PLANNED pustule.
Obviously it's hideous. But the project is a proposal that has lots of bureaucracy to clear and probably won't ever happen. Moreover, it wouldn't be in Venice, but a nearby town called Porto Marghera, a gritty industrial area. Yes, it would be visible from a distance from certain vantage points in Venice. So are the lovely cruise ship construction docks in Mestre and the attractive flame-spewing refineries of Marghera. It's ridiculous and alarmist to compare its measurements with the Campanile as if they would be side by side.
"I'm all for mixing new architecture with old, but this is not how to do it; it would completely dominate Venice, and destroy Venice's unique sense of place. Venice is a world heritage site!"
It is an Italian city and the decision is up to Italians and Venetians.
@jdoey -- That a place or monument is listed on UNESCO's World Heritage List does not change the legal status, merely that it is in the interest of the international community to preserve it. However, Italians are extremely sensitive to the status of Venice, and it is a factor that will be weighing in their decision-making.
...And being Italian, so will the design merits (or lack thereof) of this project.
As for visibility -- this will be much more visible than the industrial grit of Porto Marghera and Mestre, which are low-rise -- to the best of my knowledge, it will be the only 60 story building in the vicinity, which is quite flat, given it is situated in the coastal/plain area of the Veneto.
I'm glad to read it's not really going to be in Venice. Wouldn't it just sink immediately with all that weight from the 60 stories?
Anyway Ellebee probably has it right. While the people who live there should get to make this decision, not foreigners on the far end of a keyboard, the Italian gov't beauracracy will very likely find a way to screw this up even if it's unanimously wanted by all the people in Venice, Marghera, and Mestre.
I do think it has great style. The original skirt is hideous, but the building is cool.
i wonder how they're going to keep it from sinking?