A very brief note on glassmaking in Venice Tobia Scarpa  1935–

It is wasted time! Look at me. Venice has finally landed in Las Vegas. The real Las Vegas. And what is left of the real Venice is really very small.

A city, to be real, must have its citizens. The citizens of Venice are almost all tourists–people passing through. And the ones that remain don’t know how to make glass anymore.

Giorgio, you and Nancy are brave and you are right to love and to own the most beautiful glassworks of a particular moment–those in which a ferociously preserved tradition has been embedded in the marvel of a new thought, the modern. But the modern is seen through that particular lens that is the sensibility of the lagoon. This sensibility has the magic of making anything beautiful and this is not a small thing. In fact, those glassworks that you love, protect, and preserve have the reflection of the Venetian canals, the light of the Venetian passageways, and the sound of the Venetian squares. That is all they have. The rest of Venice, you can find much more comfortably in Las Vegas.

P.S. Today, June 2nd, would have been the birthday of my father, Carlo Scarpa.