The Palazzo, parts of which date back to the sixteenth century, has been restored and converted to house the headquarters of 21 Invest, an investment company founded by Italian businessman Alessandro Benetton. The inauguration ceremony featured speeches by Alessandro Benetton, David Chipperfield, and renowned scholar of Renaissance and Venetian architecture, Antonio Foscari.
Writing about the project in the most recent issue of CASABELLA under the title “Once and for All”, architectural historian Francesco Dal Co suggests that the restoration approach follows a similar strategy to that used in the Neues Museum in Berlin: “Chipperfield has intervened with systematic removal of the stratifications and inevitable consequences of the different uses of the Palazzo, unearthing the traces of the changing tastes and needs of those who have inhabited it over more than five hundred years.
“But it is not only inside that the work reveals its affinities with the design [of the Neues Museum]. Even the alterations made to the elevation, and in particular the extension of the openings of the top floor added to the building after the Second World War, show how "abstinence from all creative gestures, moderation and expressive chastity", as Braghieri wrote in 2009, represent for Chipperfield a choice that can be adapted to circumstances but cannot be reversed.”