Casa dei Tre Oci, Gothic Revival palace on Giudecca Island, Venice, Italy.
Casa dei Tre Oci is a palace on Giudecca Island in Venice, distinguished by its three prominent windows on the neo-Gothic facade. The building features details from multiple architectural styles and sits along the water's edge with a distinctive structure.
Mario de Maria, a painter from Bologna, designed the house in 1912–1913 as his Venetian residence, naming it for the three ogival windows (òci) that symbolize his surviving family. After the de Maria family, it housed artists and scholars, including Fulbright fellows in the 1960s and architect Renzo Piano. The Fondazione di Venezia bought it in 2000 and reopened it in 2012 as a photography gallery; in 2021 Nicolas Berggruen agreed to purchase it.
The name comes from the Venetian word òci ("eyes") for the three large ogival windows, which stand for Mario de Maria, his wife Emilia Voight and their son Astolfo, while the bifora above recalls his daughter Silvia. In the 1960s the building was known as Casa de Maria and housed painters such as Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Pegeen Vail Guggenheim.
The palace stands on the Fondamenta delle Zitelle on the Giudecca, facing the Giudecca Canal and visible from the Zitelle vaporetto stop across the water. Since 2012 it has operated as a photography gallery, so check current exhibition opening days before crossing. The three ogival windows and the central bifora are best seen from the opposite bank or from a boat.
The three large ogival windows stand for the surviving family of the painter Mario de Maria — himself, his wife Emilia Voight and his son Astolfo — while the bifora above them commemorates his daughter Silvia, who died young a few years before the house was conceived in 1912-1913. The Venetian word òci ("eyes") gives the building its name.
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