Fourteen Venetian Windows

Date: Author: Category: Architecture and Design, Travel, Uncategorized, Venice Tags: , , ,

Having taken the magic carpet out for a quick flight to La Serenissima on the weekend, I’m loath to roll it up and put it away.  One of the sites we visited – the circular windows of the Doges’ Palace – made me hanker after some of the city’s other signature openings, so lets head back across the lagoon and swoop down to take a look at a gallery of Fourteen Venetian Windows.

40 thoughts on “Fourteen Venetian Windows”

  1. Gorgeous display! But let’s back it up a frame or two…….is that guy on the balcony the same guy you captured (well, you didn’t capture him, you took his photo) awhile back in a piazza speaking to another gentleman seated at a cafe table? Were you stalking him?

  5. Gorgeous!
    I love the little details like the wooden shutter in the first photo that is shaped like the fancy window it fits into…and the various stone inset decorations.

    • The details are what’s missing today, with all our technology and know how, we just don’t seem to manage to get the details – or can’t afford them. Just imagine those ‘gothic’ shaped shutters, hundreds of years old, and still working beautifully despite their neglect.

    • It always seemed to me that windows were one of Venice’s ‘things’ – as if windows were one of the signs of wealth and position – and the more windows you had, and the more styles and designs you could incorporate into your facade the more ‘in’ your family had become. A real show of thing! 🙂

  12. It’s not just the windows; it’s the ochres and terracottas of the plaster and the ancient weathered bricks that makes it so beautiful, though, isn’t it? I find it interesting too that Venice as a city has inspired writers from Thomas Mann to Ian McEwan to use it as a backdrop for some chilling and disturbing stories; despite its beauty there is something about it, after dark that makes it easy to imagine intrigue and skulduggery. On my first visit I remember starting to panic a little as I was hopelessly lost in the Arsenale as dusk was starting to fall – I was imagining that I was being stalked by a murderous dwarf a la ‘Don’t Look Now’!

    • Rowena – there was so much I wanted to say in reply to your comment – and now I’ve forgotten the crux of it … something to do with Jeanette Winterson and The Passion, and trying to write a novel, and hearing the cobbles speak, the canals luring me …

      No! It’s not just the windows, or the doors, the crumbling ochre washes or the higgeldy piggeldy labyrinths off the main drag. It’s one of those places where history comes to life and every tale we’ve ever heard of the dark side of life in this bewitching and hedonistic city seems possible still, especially after dark. I had some spine-tingling walks home after visiting friends late at night – all in my imagination, of course!

  14. Aaah, the glories of virtual travel. The G.O. and I were just discussing windows the other day, and the impact they, or lack of them have on our lives… I’ve just been moved within the office from a corner to a window seat, and my perspective both internal and external is greatly improved 🙂 I guess that’s why such importance is placed on them in architecture.

    • I know exactly what you mean! I once lived in the most gorgeous house, inward-looking like the ancient houses of the desert. Ringed with courtyards and voids it was bright and sunny and being on a now busy corner, felt private and serene. But you know, after about three or four months having no window on the outside world began to really play with my mind. When the lease came up at the end of the year I couldn’t wait to move!

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