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| Teatro Italia in its heyday |
Inaugurated on March 1, 1916, as a theater, Teatro Italia was the dream of the Venetian publisher, Giuseppe Scarabellin, along with the designer, Dominico Mocellin. The architect was Giovanni Sardi, renowned for designing the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido. At the time it opened, Cinema Teatro Italia was considered one of the greatest cinemas in all of Italy.
The Scarabellin family were prominent locals in the Cannaregio sestiere, an up-and-coming district that had radically transformed after the inauguration of one of Italy's first train lines in 1846. A new street to connect the station to Rialto called "Strada Nuova" was inaugurated in 1871. A "cluster of shacks" along Strada Nuova was demolished to make way for Scarabellin's dream.
Scarabellin had a vision of how he wanted the building to look, and hired the prominent artists Guido Marussig, Alessandro Pomi, Umberto Martina, and Umberto Bellotto, who were all friends, to decorate the interior with their considerable talents, including Pomi's fresco The Allegory of the Glory of Italy in the center of the ceiling, and Bellotto's wrought iron enhancements.
Decades later, Teatro Italia morphed from a cinema into a lecture hall for Ca' Foscari, Venice's university, and then closed in the late 1990s, when it slid into decay and became a home for rodents. If it hadn't been bought by Piero Coin and restored, it would have crumbled down.
Scarabellin had a vision of how he wanted the building to look, and hired the prominent artists Guido Marussig, Alessandro Pomi, Umberto Martina, and Umberto Bellotto, who were all friends, to decorate the interior with their considerable talents, including Pomi's fresco The Allegory of the Glory of Italy in the center of the ceiling, and Bellotto's wrought iron enhancements.
Decades later, Teatro Italia morphed from a cinema into a lecture hall for Ca' Foscari, Venice's university, and then closed in the late 1990s, when it slid into decay and became a home for rodents. If it hadn't been bought by Piero Coin and restored, it would have crumbled down.
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| Teatro Italia before the restoration |
Teatro Italia Morphs into Despar
By coincidence, a year ago today, I was passing by Teatro Italia on the day it opened on December 28, 2016, in its current incarnation as a Despar supermarket. I went inside, then came home and wrote a post, which you can read here:
Despar is proud of its recycling program, its bio-products, that they are sustainable, and that all its energy is green; they installed full LED lighting. The supermarket on Strada Nuova is a showcase for Despar Italia, and they have every incentive to keep the quality high.
From the SPAR website: "SPAR is an international group of independently owned and operated
retailers and wholesalers who work together in partnership under the
SPAR Brand to provide a high quality, value-for-money shopping
experience for the communities we serve." SPAR has about 12,500 stores in 44 countries on four continents.
De Spar was founded in 1932 by Adriaan van Well, a Dutch wholesaler who believed that independent wholesalers and retailers can achieve more by working together than working alone. In Dutch "De Spar" means "fir tree," which is their logo, and "Despar" is an an acronym of a slogan created by van Well to describe the organization: Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig, which translates into English as: All benefit from joint co-operation.
The group morphed into being simply SPAR ("spaar" means "save" in Dutch), except in Italy, where it is still Despar. Despar Italia is a consortium of six large companies of retailers, one of which is SPAR Austria Group (Aspiag), which is headquartered in Switzerland. It is the largest private employer in Austria.
If you have read my second post, you will know that I focused on the beautiful balcony, and how there would be cultural events in the future.
The Most Beautiful Supermarket in the World? Teatro Italia Morphs into De Spar in Venice
That post caused all sorts of uproar, including opinionated, negative comments on social media by self-proclaimed Venice "experts," who were not Venetian, did not live in Venice, and had never seen the interior of Teatro Italia -- nor had they ever visited the Despar supermarket. This was yet another example of outside forces and foreign operatives trying to control the narrative here in Venice.
I returned to Despar the next day, came home, and wrote another post:
The Most Beautiful Supermarket in the World? Teatro Italia - Part Two: The Balcony
One Year Later
In January of this year, I attended a press conference presented by Despar, which provided details of the restoration. Executives from Despar were there, and as I have written previously, they are nice people who knew full well that they were taking on a difficult, historic project and made every effort to ensure their restoration was done with care down to the smallest details, and that the supermarket was of the highest quality.
Despar is proud of its recycling program, its bio-products, that they are sustainable, and that all its energy is green; they installed full LED lighting. The supermarket on Strada Nuova is a showcase for Despar Italia, and they have every incentive to keep the quality high.
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| Paul Klotz, President of Despar Italia "The Beauty of Sustainability" Photo: Cat Bauer |
De Spar was founded in 1932 by Adriaan van Well, a Dutch wholesaler who believed that independent wholesalers and retailers can achieve more by working together than working alone. In Dutch "De Spar" means "fir tree," which is their logo, and "Despar" is an an acronym of a slogan created by van Well to describe the organization: Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig, which translates into English as: All benefit from joint co-operation.
The group morphed into being simply SPAR ("spaar" means "save" in Dutch), except in Italy, where it is still Despar. Despar Italia is a consortium of six large companies of retailers, one of which is SPAR Austria Group (Aspiag), which is headquartered in Switzerland. It is the largest private employer in Austria.
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| Teatro Italia Orchestra in the balcony - Photo: Cat Bauer |
Well, the future is now. Back on September 8, 2017, I was invited to hear a concert by the newly-formed Teatro Italia Orchestra - TIO - a group of students from the Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello, Venice's school of music, founded and directed by Maestro Dario Bisso Sabadin. Imagine shopping for groceries when, suddenly, the music of violins and woodwinds fills the air.
Actually, you don't have to imagine. I filmed a short video, which you can watch below:
For those who want to educate themselves about Teatro Italia, a meticulously researched book about the history, restoration, and repurposing of Venezia Cinema Teatro Italia was recently published in Italian by the distinguished Marsilio publishing house. A limited edition will be published in English in February. I'll keep you posted.
UPDATE: An excerpt from the Foreword of the English edition, Bowing to Beauty:
CEO of Aspiag Service Srl
Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog
Actually, you don't have to imagine. I filmed a short video, which you can watch below:
For those who want to educate themselves about Teatro Italia, a meticulously researched book about the history, restoration, and repurposing of Venezia Cinema Teatro Italia was recently published in Italian by the distinguished Marsilio publishing house. A limited edition will be published in English in February. I'll keep you posted.
UPDATE: An excerpt from the Foreword of the English edition, Bowing to Beauty:
---Paul KlotzI believe this is Cinema Teatro Italia's mission: to remind us that all products can be bought but beauty will always be a gift.
CEO of Aspiag Service Srl
Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog
One year ago today, I wrote about the controversial transformation of Teatro Italia, a beautiful neo-Gothic and Art Nouveau architectural gem here in Venice, into a Despar supermarket. Inaugurated on March 2, 1916 as a theater, Teatro Italia was the dream of the Venetian publisher, Giuseppe Scarabellin, along with the designer, Dominico Mocellin. The architect was Giovanni Sardi, renown for designing the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido.
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