Gran Caffè Quadri Hosts the Architecture Biennale with a Special Project by Studio Teresa Sapey and Curator Aaron Betsky
Designed for Venetians, Biennale visitors, and all visitors to Venice, artist Teresa Sapey’s intervention transforms the outdoor space of Gran Caffè Quadri in Piazza San Marco into a work of art. With colors and motifs inspired by the diverse cultures with which Venice has exchanged for centuries—Persia, India, and North Africa—the work transforms seating, tables, and umbrellas into a narrative device that highlights the city’s multiculturalism and the role that coffee has played in fostering the exchange and integration of different cultures.
The project, created with her daughter Francesca and curator Aaron Betsky, is the first Biennale project to be hosted in Piazza San Marco, and intertwines with the 250th anniversary of Gran Caffè Quadri, opened in 1775 by Giorgio Quadri.
A Garden in Piazza San Marco
For 250 years, Gran Caffè Quadri has lived in the heart of Piazza San Marco. Today, with emotion, we participate in the Architecture Biennale to contribute to an open and shared reflection on how beauty can guide the rules of public space. Raffaele Alajmo
New life for the chairs, arch curtains, orchestra covering, tablecloths, and table tops, which tell the stories of Venetian faces alongside images of the city. If the starting point is coffee, the project expands to current themes: “right in Piazza San Marco, in the 18th century, the first café conceived as a public space for social gathering was born” recounts Sapey. “This project tells the story of contemporary Venice through the art of coffee, where the world’s first café was born, which was also the first place where women were able to enjoy a cup of coffee in a public setting“.
Renovate and reuse: the intervention was designed to dialogue with the Piazza, where the studio Teresa Sapey + Partners, with curator Aaron Betsky, worked on every element with a logic of light layering, built to adhere to the existing without altering it, and with an ecological and sustainable perspective:
At the end of the project, everything will be dismantled, returning the piazza to its original state. All fabrics will be donated to the women’s prison on Giudecca, to create design objects, thus creating a positive social impact.
Teresa Sapey
Everything is 100% reversible and reusable, with a dual version, day and night, developed by the studio with the support of artificial intelligence.
A Collective Project of Families and Businesses
This year’s experience is an invitation from Raffaele Alajmo to continue designing innovations, perhaps together with all the cafés in the Piazza.
The chair covers were handcrafted by Piermaria New Form, as were the arch curtains and the orchestra covering. Each piece was cut, sewn, and finished by hand in the workshop of the Marche-based company: a process that recalls the tailoring tradition and decorative craftsmanship, with finishes designed to dialogue with the geometry of the piazza and visually accompany the other elements of the installation.
The outdoor fabrics, by Mariaflora, are printed in Italy with VivaColor technology and inspired by the coffee route. Each motif visually tells a geography of cultural exchanges.
The tables are covered with surfaces designed together with Aaron Betsky, where portraits of inhabitants merge with Venetian landscapes in a visual interweaving composed like a collage.
The umbrellas were reimagined together with Gaggio, with reflective inserts and glossy bands.
The entire project was overseen by UNO Contract, which transformed the artistic vision into a coherent and functional space.
For the 250th anniversary of Gran Caffè Quadri, the Alajmo Group—a leading name in Italian dining led by Raffaele and Massimiliano Alajmo, three-Michelin-star chef—has created a special menu that accompanies the architectural intervention as a concrete extension of the experience, a blend developed for the occasion by Laboratorio Giamaica Caffè, and a commemorative cup in limited edition made by the Venetian manufactory Geminiano Cozzi, founded in 1765.
Article by Lucia Pecoraro and Laura Scarpa.
Photos provided by the press office of Gran Caffè Quadri and Uno Contract.
