‘Alluvione di Nero’

J.M.Marriot Isola Delle Rose Hotel & Spa, Venice

Client: Westmont

Architect: Matteo Thun & Partners

Designer: Veronica Givone

 

The Baroque painters of the Venetian School have been an important and pervasive influence on the works of Alan Rankle and it was with great enthusiasm he accepted the commission from J.W.Marriott to create a suite of paintings celebrating the landscape and the art of Venice for La Villa Rosa a beautifully restored early 20th Century building on the island of Isola Delle Rose in the venetian lagoona.

 

The Seven paintings at La Villa Rosa are titled ‘Alluvione di Nero’ and may be seen as a meditation on the historical art and culture of this precarious and vulnerable city in the light of current environmental concerns.

Isola Delle Rose itself is an artificial island re-imagined and transformed into a luxury resort and park by the architect Matteo Thun. The interior of La Villa Rosa is by the celebrated designer Veronica Givione who worked closely with Alan Rankle Studio to make a successful integration of the art and architecture.

 

 The island has a number of early-twentieth-century buildings set in unique landscape of gardens, orchards and walkways with views across the lagoon to Venice itself and all now have artworks installed as a integral part of the scheme.

The J.W.Marriott Venice Spa & Resort is now an innovative luxury resort, and importantly a ‘3zero’ village, both in its construction and in its subsequent management: zero kilometers, zero CO2, zero waste and represents a positive response to the climate change which increasingly threatens this area of outstanding beauty and human achievement.

As in much of Alan Rankle’s work the viewer is drawn into a dialogue on the relationship we have to both the natural world and the cultural narratives of a particular place.