A space for spritz lovers. Cà Select Bar in Venice by Marcante-Testa

Project description by Marcante Testa

CA SELECT project by the Marcante-Testa architecture studio concerns the construction, within a building located in the Cannaregio district in Venice, of a multifunctional space for the production and promotion of the historic bitter SELECT, known as the basic ingredient for the Venetian Spritz.

The history of Select is strongly connected with the history of Venice, where the brand was founded in 1920, and from this premise, the Montenegro Group commissioned the architects Andrea Marcante and Adelaide Testa with the intention of offering a reinterpretation of the unique characteristics of the Venetian spirit thus reviving a piece of its history.

The space, previously used as a workshop for metalworking, develops a surface area of 700 square meters on two levels and is divided into three functional zones: a production area for the phases of maceration of the main raw materials of the Select, such as rhubarb and juniper, an exhibition area where to tell the historical link with the city of Venice and a multipurpose space characterized by the bar/mixology counter in fused glass. The latter, designed by the designers, becomes the first identifying element of the brand, in which the historic bottle and the long-stemmed glass become an integral part of the furnishings and lighting.

All the wooden trusses of the ceiling, coeval with the construction of the building, have remained visible and constitute the element of spatial continuity while the high-altitude path of the exhibition areas, curated by Studio Fludd, allows the visitor to learn about the history of Select, its link with the city and its most original and unusual places, as well as the various stages of processing, also thanks to a direct view of the production area through a glass wall with a red filter.


Cà Select Bar in Venice by Marcante-Testa. Photograph by Helenio Barbetta.

The overall experience of the new space, punctuated by large curtains, is imagined as a theatrical sequence where the public becomes the protagonist, as in the famous "Bal Oriental", whose life-size moving images "immerse" the visitor in what remains in history as the most extraordinary masquerade party of the Venetian '900, so as to earn the title of "Party of the Century".

The materials used in the project belong to historical local craft traditions, while the design is the result of a continuous stylistic reinterpretation according to the approach that characterizes the research of the Marcante-Testa studio. The custom mosaics at the entrance are inspired by sketches by Mariano Fortuny and handcrafted by the historic Fornace Orsoni, the floor in Venetian seminato is enriched with glass and marble inlays while the coatings of the bar counter in glass fusion, typical of the traditional Murano, allude with their design to a slight wave motion, recalling that typical of the lagoon.


Cà Select Bar in Venice by Marcante-Testa. Photograph by Helenio Barbetta.

A similar approach was used for the choice of lighting fixtures by Mariano Fortuny: from the "discs" of light suspended by means of a red metal structure that "delimits" and identifies the bar counter, up to his famous indirect lights from the ground and the precious lamps wall lamps placed along perceptive lines to delimit the space.

The path of designers wants to tell a Venice capable of drawing on the uniqueness of its history through the lens of the contemporary and give Select a home that highlights its past and future link with this city.

The Cà Select space has the ambition of being a place open to the city, versatile and usable for different events, in view of those cultural values that make Venice unique in the world.