Axel Vervoordt + Venetian Palazzo = Heaven On Earth

Design genius Axel Vervoordt has fallen under the spell of Venice, and taken an apartment in the piano nobile of the 15th c Palazzo Alverà. Not surprisingly, it is a wonder to behold.

Please click on any image to enlarge for a better view.

All photos by Mario Ciampi, for Architectural Digest.

The entrance to the palazzo is on the Grand Canal, but Vervoordt says "you live on the back side, with its garden, its silence, its big open windows.
It's bliss."*

The home, his 4th residence, is apparently M. Vervoordt's
60th birthday gift to himself.
We love the poetry of his reference to the crumbling plaster walls
of the structure, as "beautiful damage."

With splendid architecture to work with, Vervoordt only did "gentle" renovations, taking out more than he put in. The living room, above, was originally a bedroom with vividly painted ceilings and modern parquetry flooring. He replaced the flooring with wide-plank poplar, and painted the walls terra-cotta, "to set off the elaborate woodwork." The painting over the sofa is by Jef Verheyen.

The previous formal dining room became the breakfast room, above. Vervoordt designed the table - made from a type of pine that only grows in the Alps - and then left it outdoors in the weather to achieve the desired patina. The circa 1720 mirror, from the Piedmont region, is from the Vervoordts' collection. We're guessing that the floors are terrazzo,** and original to the home.

Vervoordt brought the Venetian chandelier from Belgium for the new dining room. The 19th c frescoes and the suite of Venetian chairs are original to the palazzo. The wall-size mirror reflects the shimmering candlelight and the magnificent leaded windows and doors opening onto the loggia.

Two steps up from the dining room, is the loggia, where the Vervoordts like to open up the windows to cool breezes.

Another view of the loggia. May Vervoordt upholstered the furniture here and throughout with a neutral cotton. Apparently, Axel's wife is also involved in the decorating.

Vervoordt has a knack for finding fabulous architectural gems for his homes and studios. Axel Vervoordt, The Story of a Style is a book about two of his properties: a castle near Antwerp, and his Kanaal gallery in a restored industrial complex on the banks of a canal. And, At Home With May and Axel Vervoordt is a luxury edition about their castle. Both of these books appear to be out of print, however a few second-hand copies are available if you have $750-950 to spend on a book. We think a second printing is in order for both.

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*Architectural Digest, Sept 08
**Terrazzo flooring was named after the Italian terrazza (terrace) and was first used in Friuli in the north east of Italy in the 16th century. Andrea Palladio used Fruili craftsmen to lay terrazzo floors in the villas he designed in the areas around Venice during the 1560s. More information about the history of terrazzo floors can be found here and here.
If anyone is familiar with "Decorative Floors of Venice" by Tudy Sammartini, I'd love to know if you would recommend it. It looks like a great resource for the study of mosaic and terrazzo floors, and I've added it to my Amazon shop. If you're interested, take a look or buy it here.
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Art installation over an entrance to the Fortuny museum, for
Artempo: Where Times Becomes Art.

Once establishing his residence in Venice, Vervoordt mounted a critically acclaimed art exhibition at the Palazzo Fortuny, the former home and studio of Mariano Fortuny.* Read and see more about Artempo: Where Time Becomes Art here. There has also been a book published on the show, which you can see here.

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Mariano Fortuny (1871-1949) "was an innovator in fashion, textile and lighting who was also a painter, photographer and theatrical designer. He lived, worked and experimented in his 16th-century Venetian-Gothic palazzo for the last 49 years of his life, creating a universe that remains very much intact today. The most ostentatiously Fortunian space is the grand middle floor of the palazzo, draped with the designer’s textiles and lighted by his ornate parasol-like painted silk lamps, which served as a studio-salon-showroom."*

*The New York Times

Fortuny lamps, like these spectacular examples, are still sought after today.

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