Best price guarantee and exclusive offers only here on our website!
Between art and architecture, the “vertiginous” staircase by Carsten Höller
Carsten Höller, Venice Inclined Oval Staircase I Photo: Massimo Pistore | Courtesy Berggruen Arts & Culture
Carsten Höller’s new project for Berggruen Arts & Culture opens to the public, a permanent and functional work of art born from the transformation of a pre-existing unfinished staircase located inside the eighteenth-century Venetian headquarters of the Berggruen Arts & Culture Foundation. The work, between art and architecture, is a spiral staircase with metal balustrades, Vicenza marble and marmorino, joined by metal frames, consisting of a structure inclined at 5°, a barely perceptible slope, but too small to be noticed and capable of transmitting a sense of uncertainty when stepped on, a recurring feature in Carsten Höller’s work. The work was proposed by the Silvio Fassi architectural Studio with Maddalena Gallamini and Sebastiano Roveroni, responsible for the important restoration of Palazzo Diedo, who, having noted the lack of an adequate connection between the first and second main floors, entrusted the German artist with the task of designing a new spiral staircase that would introduce an unusual dynamic element, modeled on the Palladian staircases of the Rotonda in Vicenza and the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.
