The Fuse team gets to work in some pretty spectacular locations – the Piazza della Repubblica in Florence, the Placa Catlunya in Barcelona, Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin and now…

…the Rialto Bridge in Venice.

June 2013 saw the opening of a brand new Rock Shop for Hard Rock International which is literally on the steps of the world famous bridge.  The Rialto Bridge (Italian: Ponte di Rialto) is one of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal. It is the oldest bridge across the canal and was completed in 1551 and spans 28.8 metres.

Designed, permitted, fitted out and opened in just 12 weeks, the new retail unit is actually one of three project handovers that happened that June.  

The Venice Rock Shop extends to just 62sqm (665sqft) and because it sits on steps at the end of the bridge, the shop floor rises 1.2m (4’0″) from one end to the other.  Needless to say, the historically sensitive location meant that the intervention had to be kept to an absolute minimum.  An existing balcony around the space and all other existing features were retained and new shopfittings are all loose and are easily removed (which also meant that they could all be manufactured off site).

To keep energy and transport costs to a minimum and speed up the project, materials were sourced locally wherever possible.  Venetian plaster is used on the walls, Italian laminates on the joinery and local porcelain tiles on the floors.  In addition, two bespoke red chandeliers were manufactured specially in the local world-famous Murano glass factory.