Negozio Olivetti

Negozio Olivetti occupies a slender ground-floor space on the Procuratie Vecchie side of Piazza San Marco, one of the most scrutinised addresses in Venice. The shop was commissioned by Adriano Olivetti and redesigned in 1958 by the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa, who transformed a narrow, unremarkable unit into one of the finest examples of twentieth-century Italian design. Scarpa introduced a raised water basin at the entrance, a floating staircase in Aurisina marble, and a precise layering of stone, glass, and brass that made the interior feel simultaneously ancient and modern. The space originally served as a showroom for Olivetti typewriters and calculating machines, placing cutting-edge industrial design directly beneath the arcades of a Renaissance piazza.

Today the Negozio Olivetti is preserved and managed by the FAI, the Italian National Trust, as a small museum dedicated to Scarpa's architecture and the Olivetti legacy. Visitors can explore the space through an entry ticket or join a guided tour that traces the building's materials, proportions, and the cultural ambition that brought it into being.