The surprising story of the underwater Venice hidden in its wood poles
“An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.”
Iosif Brodskij, Watermark
Adopting the concept of re-utilisation, the Bricola Collection is created with a view to the aesthetic value of the historic Venetian wooden poles that have endured decades of weathering in the famous and unique Lagoon.
During their stay in the salt water, these Oak logs are deeply sculpted by Teredo Navalis, shipworms that leaves traces of their passing on the wooden surface producing striking patterns of circular holes, whilst avoiding the inner core of the log, allowing it to maintain its health and strength. This creates a beautiful contrast between outer decay and inner robustness.
The assiduous labour of the elements necessitates the replacement and scrapping of the poles, providing an organic material that has traversed by life. For the making of, alcarol dove into the waters of the Venetian canals and studied the characteristic environment in which these poles were forged.
The project engages with the idea of submerged cross-section of this extraordinary setting, with the aim to transcend its ordinary perception. alcarol has patented an elaborate process capable of filling only the empty spaces of the wood with an innovative transparent resin capturing the underwater air bubbles that bring the wood back to the original look and conditions.
By filling the gaps left by shipworms with resin, alcarol achieves a new functionality with the poetic choice to bring the material beneath the water’s surface, freezing time at the end of its cycle and giving it a new life before it goes to waste.
The foundations of Venice consist of thousands of timber poles driven into the Lagoon’s caranto layer – a mixture of solid clay and sand situated at great depths. These unique design pieces – which are sculpted by water, salt, shipworms and time – are a tribute to this epic submarine struggle that has transcended millennia.
The Bricole’s external surface is left intentionally intact, as reminder of the Venetian sojourn of this characteristic recovered timber. All parts sawn from Bricola poles undergo accurate and painstaking washing, cleaning, drying and disinfection procedures.
This collection is the result of a long experimentation period on the coupling of Bricola solid wood and transparent resin. The alcarol‘s patented process has allowed to propose these unique pieces preserving the natural wood surface not covered by resin on the section planes, according to the cross-section generative concept.
Solid Bricola wood and transparent polished resin differ from one another at touch and sight and together they give essential characteristics: warmth and matt porosity from natural wood, elegance and evocative transparency from the resin.
