Arsenale - Biennale Venue

Since 1999, the Biennale has been particuarly attentive to all the restoration works designed for the Arsenale, a complex urban estate of high historical importance, in order to plan a new functional exhibition arrangement in the areas conceded by the Demanio Militare.
 

50.000 square metres (25.000 of which of indoor space) of the South-East area of the Arsenale have become the stable site of the Biennale activities, with exhibition spaces such as: Corderie, Artiglierie, Gaggiandre, Tese Cinquecentesche, Tese delle Vergini.
 

Live performances have taken place at the Teatro alle Tese and at the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale.

These buildings were properly renewed, restoring shingles, plants and floorings, providing up-to-date and equipped services for visitors: ticket-offices, bookshops, catering services, control rooms.

The new Padiglione Italia, destined to the exhibitions promoted by The Ministry for Cultural Affairs, overlooks the Gaggiandre and the 16th century Tese on one side, and the Giardino delle Vergini on the other. It hosts Italian artists in a significantly enlarged and requalified structure (in 2009 the exhibition space was extended from 800 to 1800 square metres).

At the same time a new reorganisation plan to access this area has been defined, specifically by realising a new entrance from the Ponte dei Pensieri, which links the Giardino delle Vergini to the Castello neighbourhood.  This bridge is in fact a completely new access to the Arsenale, making the Giardini-Arsenale being perceived as a new unity.

Its entire surface (6000 square metres) having been used for the first time in 2008, on the occasion of the 11th International Architecture Exhibition, nowadays the Giardino delle Vergini also hosts a landscape installation by Gustafson Porter - Gustafson Guthrie Nichol firms.