Venice Film Festival's Red Box: Temporary Sala Giardino Replaces Abandoned Construction Pit

Two years after an article decried the disgraceful state of the Venice Film Festival area, the embarrassing hole that marred the space has finally been covered. In its place now stand a small park and the new Sala Giardino, a prefabricated red parallelepiped that seats 446 and is open to the public. The hole was the fenced construction site of the Nuovo Palazzo del Cinema, designed by Rudy Ricciotti and 5+1AA, winners of an international competition, but the project was never completed. Before construction was halted, contractors had demolished the casino staircase and the pine forest in front, leaving a gaping void visible to festival-goers. The new building, a simple but dignified red box reminiscent of the Biennale logo, and the replanted pine trees serve as a testament to the futility of the original sacrifice. While the Sala Giardino marks a great improvement over an embarrassing situation, the author hopes it remains a temporary solution and that the Fondazione Biennale and the Comune di Venezia find resources for a permanent arrangement, possibly involving the still-disfigured Casino staircase.