A 15th-Century Venetian Palazzo Becomes Dries Van Noten’s Creative Sanctuary

A New Chapter in Venice

In the heart of Venice, where water, light, and history intertwine in an endless dance, fashion icon Dries Van Noten is embarking on a new journey. With the opening of the Fondazione Dries Van Noten, the Belgian designer has shifted from creating seasonal runway collections to managing a vibrant creative hub that celebrates craftsmanship within a Renaissance palazzo on the Grand Canal.

Van Noten shared his vision with ELLE Decor, stating, “Celebrating craft today means recognizing its role in shaping how we design, innovate, and understand making, keeping us connected to the human side of creativity while opening it up to dialogue across disciplines.” He emphasizes that when fashion, jewelry, art, design, glass, ceramics, and other creative fields come together, they create encounters where each work shifts how you see the next, revealing shared questions about emotion, convention, and material.

The Foundation’s Mission

Craftsmanship, according to the foundation’s perspective, is an evolving and sometimes radical language. Conceived with Van Noten’s longtime partner Patrick Vangheluwe, the non-profit’s mission is to dissolve the boundaries between disciplines, creating an ecosystem where artisans and artists can exchange ideas across generations and geographies. The foundation will host residencies and collaborations as well as ongoing exhibitions, weaving local craft traditions like Murano glass and Burano lace into a global conversation.

The foundation’s home is the Palazzo Pisani Moretta, a 15th-century jewel featuring richly frescoed ceilings, gilded salons, and impressive chandeliers—all of it deliberately left in a state of romantic suspension. Rather than impose a heavy-handed renovation, Van Noten has chosen to let the building speak, its patina of centuries, its imperfections and opulence, forming a dialogue with the works on view.

The Inaugural Exhibition

The inaugural exhibition, “The Only True Protest Is Beauty,” sets the tone. Curated by Van Noten in consultation with longtime collaborator Geert Bruloot, the show includes more than 200 works that come together in interdisciplinary, intergenerational vignettes, creating compelling contrasts and shared connections.

Opening on April 25, just ahead of the Venice Biennale in early May, the show is positioned as counterpoint and complement to the world’s most celebrated contemporary art event. The foundation’s hope is that the layered meditation on making will be an unexpected highlight for visitors.

A Celebration of Beauty and Resistance

“The Only True Protest Is Beauty,” which will remain on view through October 4, draws on a wide spectrum of disciplines—jewelry, photography, collectible design—yet resists hierarchy. A couture silhouette by Christian Lacroix might shimmer against a backdrop of Venetian frescoes. Experimental glass and ceramics by names like Alexander Kirkeby and Ritsue Mishima echo the city’s own artisanal heritage. Sculptures by Misha Kahn bring an exuberant, edgy twist to the historic setting. The show invites visitors to move intuitively through the palazzo, discovering affinities between objects that transcend medium or era.

The exhibition title, borrowed from folk singer Phil Ochs, hints at a deeper ambition: beauty as a form of resistance, a counterweight to an increasingly digitized, accelerated, cynical world. In an age of algorithms and artificial intelligence, the exhibition makes a compelling case for the handmade, the irregular, and the soulful.

Embracing the Future

Yet the show is no exercise in nostalgia. Van Noten is clear-eyed about the future, embracing new technologies alongside traditional forms of making and positioning Venice not as a place of trapped-in-amber craft traditions but as a dynamic laboratory. As he says: “I hope [visitors] come to the Fondazione with a sense of discovery, and leave with that same sense of curiosity: experiencing beauty as a moment of shift that opens new ways of seeing and thinking.”