The ornate beauty of Venetian plaster walls has been a particularly desirable interior design option in the decades since its 20th-century rediscovery.
After Carlo Scarpa reintroduced the world to Marmorino in his buildings and sculptures, polished plaster has become extremely popular for its versatility, flexibility and applicability to a wide range of different styles and decorative philosophies.
Mr Scarpa, an architect born in Venice and whose works were primarily constructed there, helped to reconnect polished plaster to Venice in the same way Andrea Palladio had over four centuries before him when he rediscovered many classical construction techniques from Ancient Rome.
There has always been a connection between polished plaster and Venice which spans at least as far back as the architect Vitruvius, but it is far from a coincidence that the City of Water, Bridges and Canals became the centre of the technique, as it allowed an almost impossible city to be created.
A City Of Floating Marble
In Ancient Rome, the main construction material for buildings was stone or marble. This is part of the reason why so many Roman buildings such as the famed columns of the Pantheon, the Colosseum and the Market of Trajan were all made from a combination of stone and marble.
Not only was this demonstrably strong and long-lasting, given that a remarkable number of Ancient Roman buildings and monuments survive today, but it also created the classical aesthetic built around the beauty of natural stone, one that the Romans would attempt to export throughout the Roman Empire.
This can be seen in the Roman Baths in Bath, but arguably the most challenging place to build a city that was decidedly Roman in architectural language was Venice.
A vital port city even back then, Venice was a city constructed mostly on top of 127 islands connected by bridges. This meant that to stop buildings from collapsing into the water, they needed to use lightweight materials.
Stone and especially marble were extraordinarily heavy using Roman construction methods and would not be suitable, if possible at all to use.
The Venetian Compromise
The solution to the problem of weight was somewhat astonishing, as following a lengthy period of experimentation, designers and architects found that lime plaster could be mixed with marble dust to create a finish that resembled marble without needing to be as thick nor as heavy.
More importantly, compared to simply painting a substitute wall, the plaster becomes a stone finish, which means that whilst it is lighter than the stonework associated with other Roman cities, it is stronger than a painted finish and looks similar to other Roman construction.
This started the relationship between polished plaster and Venice, which meant that it was only fitting that Mr Palladio and Mr Scarpa would rediscover the lost art centuries later in Venice and recapture that astonishing style.
With more versatile and flexible construction techniques available today than during the Roman Empire, Venetian plaster is chosen for its beautiful looks and how its aesthetic can be shaped by skilled specialist artisans.
