Hotel Bauer Palazzo Site Features

The hotel occupies two connected buildings with markedly different architectural languages: an 18th-century Venetian palazzo facing the Grand Canal, and a mid-20th-century wing built in a more austere, Rationalist style.

This pairing is unusual for Venice, where most historic hotels expand by acquiring and connecting to further old buildings rather than adding new construction -- the contrast between the two wings is part of what distinguishes the hotel's interior from its more uniformly historic neighbors.

Two buildings, two centuries

The property joins an 18th-century palazzo facing the Grand Canal to a mid-20th-century wing behind it, and the seam between them is the most interesting thing about the place. Venice's other grand hotels grew by absorbing further historic buildings; this one grew by building something deliberately modern next door.

The 1950s wing

That wing, by Marino Meo, is Rationalist rather than revivalist -- flat planes, regular fenestration, and no attempt at Gothic or Baroque pastiche. It drew objections at the time and still does, and it is one of very few modern insertions of any scale into the historic centre.

The San Moisè frontage

The land entrance opens onto Campo San Moisè, directly opposite the heavily sculpted Baroque facade of the church of San Moisè -- so the approach sets a restrained hotel front against one of the most ornamented church facades in the city.

The building occupies a corner site at Campo San Moisè, where the Rio di San Moisè meets the Grand Canal, a few minutes' walk west of Piazza San Marco.

It is one of the last plots before the canal opens into the Bacino, so the palazzo wing's upper floors look down the full width of the canal mouth toward Santa Maria della Salute and the Punta della Dogana -- a wider prospect than the enclosed views most Grand Canal palaces have.

The land side is quite different. Campo San Moisè sits on the main walking route between San Marco and the Accademia, so the entrance faces a constant stream of foot traffic through a small, tight square, while the water side faces open lagoon light.

Like everything at this end of the canal it sits low, and the Grand Canal frontage is exposed to acqua alta through the autumn and winter tides.