VENICE.- Wonder is a right, and culture is the longing for wonder.

At Fondazione Querini Stampalia, we cultivate the rare sensation that is wonder—what Plato saw as the root of all thought, and what for Rebecca Solnit becomes a form of freedom, an ethical leaning toward the unknown.

Following in the footsteps of the visionary Giovanni Querini, the Fondazione becomes an archipelago of experiences, where knowledge is diffused by rhizomatic, eclectic and non-hierarchical connections and analogies.

The lagoon is the ideal place to experience Rachel Carson’s sense of wonder, where union and separation, threshold and foundation endlessly exchange roles.

Here, wonder is method, as in the view of Carlo Rovelli, who sees it in the very fabric of time and reality. It is tension and abundance—teaching us to observe closely the heartbeat of the world.

If the future belongs to visionaries—those who dream from the margins and inspire hope—then let us make room for wonder. Let us stock up, and boost that energy which is always available but that often slips through our fingers like sand.

With Lions on field, we step into the scene alongside the powerful lions of Davide Rivalta—heraldic yet familiar beings, both guardians and resting companions.

We pause on the threshold, at a portal standing on the masegni—the stone slabs—where Martí Guixé with Q Spot. Seat, read, think, repeat, has turned our logo into a communal seating area connected to the café and the Libreria Giovanni.

A nizioleto—a Venetian street sign—welcomes us like a title on the cover of a book, foreshadowing what lies within. Inside, the Fondazione reveals its open, vibrant, composite space—a home where we equip ourselves with books, ideas and relationships.

On the second floor is the Count’s residence while on the first is his library—the beating heart of his emotions. Then come the spaces transformed by Scarpa, Pastor, Botta, and De Lucchi: architectures in dialogue with one another, across time and thought—communicating vessels, islands of intelligence.

John Baldessari’s exhibition No Stone Unturned—Conceptual Photography, on the third floor, unfolds like a visual journey where nothing is left to chance. Because art, like wonder, is still an uncharted world—a landscape where nature is not yet culture, and there are no rules to imitate, no rhetoric to fall back on.

Cristiana Collu
Director of Fondazione Querini Stampalia