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MORPHOSIS
Michael Rotondi & Thom Mayne

72 Market Street

Venice

This restaurant is a new piece of construction utilizing a historic building on a small street of rich architectural heritage in Venice, The building is part of the original collonaded texture of downtown Venice.

Central to the renovation is a new column, aligned with the cast-iron column of the front facade, which literally helps to support the old building. The etched metal post, placed in the middle of a cubical bar area, supports an earthquake tension ring. The excisting slender column is contrasted with a short, thick and hollow metal construction with a bolted capital supporting only horizontal loads.

The "Main Room" is straight forward and simple, seating sixty people in a rectangle

left-over between the front and the back.

The project addresses issues of loss of center, destabilization, and the breaking and making of architecture. It is meant to be perceived as a permanent building in a city that worships the ephemeral.

Morphosis: Buildings & projects. Essays by Peter Cook and George Rand. New York: Rizzoli 1989