Location. Palazzo Ducale, St. Mark’s Square, Venice.
The city of Venice is a veritable museum, with a significant number of monuments, villas, churches and palaces of immeasurable artistic and architectural value. The breathtaking position of Venice built on a lagoon, with waterways for roads, is an unforgettable experience for the millions of tourists that visit the city each year. However, this beauty is also precarious. High tides, salt and humidity are a constant aggression to the city. The municipality, with a limited budget, is faced with a growing number of structures that are in desperate need of restoration.
Among the most famous buildings in need of intervention are Palazzo Ducale, the Prigioni Nuove and the adjoining Bridge of Sighs. Dottor Group and the Venetian Municipality signed an agreement that would permit third parties to underwrite contracts that would specifically sponsor the restoration. The creativity for the space that frames the publicity was carried out in collaboration with Oliviero Toscani: thanks to the sponsors that have visibility on the scaffolding, the municipality will not sustain any costs for the restoration. The companies participating in the restoration must adhere to strict artistic and content guidelines in the presentation of their sponsorship. Increasingly, the private and public sectors work hand in hand to guarantee that future generations can enjoy our artistic and architectural treasures.

Architectural and Artistic Work. Restorations on the facades of the Doge’s Palace and the Prigioni Nuove facing Rio della Canonica and the Bridge of Sighs will involve the stone facings, the brick walls, railings and plaster. The first stage of the work will be to gather historic and analytical data, which are absolutely essential for drawing up an attentive and high-profile restoration project.

Therefore, once the scaffoldings have been set up, a series of chemical-physical and biological tests will follow, so as to identify the materials and the reasons for their decay, and to determine the most appropriate restoration methodologies. The anchorage of the slabs will be closely monitored using magnetometric techniques. At the same time, construction materials, the state of preservation and of previous restoration and maintenance work will be determined and compared with archive research.
The actual operational stage involves the following:
- biocidal treatment;
- reinforcing. Divided into pre-reinforcing everything that could be affected by subsequent restoration work, and reinforcing by means of injections, gluing and hinging;
- checking on the anchorage points for the slabs of the stone facings, repairing them where needed;
- removing soluble salts and cleaning the surfaces, a great deal of which are covered by dark incrustations and rust stains;
- treatment to inhibit iron oxidation processes;
- removing plaster that has deteriorated or is not compatible with preservation of the original materials;
- plastering cracks and fissures and the joints of the brick walls and repairing gaps in the plaster;
- applying a protector where necessary.

Project type. Conservative restoration.
Works start date. 14/07/2008. Duration of project planned to be 3 years.
Client. BDG Holding srl
Designer. Arch. Alberto Torsello
Contracting company. Dottor Group S.p.A
Coordinator for Security. Arch. Antonio Girello
Consultancy and collaboration. Sat Survey s.r.l. for the instrumental, architectural survey and photographic survey.