A Living Story in a Venetian Palazzo

 Aline Asmar d'Amman transforms 15th-century Palazzo Donà Giovannelli in Venice's Cannaregio into Orient Express Venezia — a layered, cinematic hotel built on lost colours and recovered splendour.

The only way to arrive at Orient Express Venezia is by water. As the boat glides through Cannaregio's canals, medieval façades rise straight from the surface, their reflections broken by the steady choreography of gondolas and vaporetti. A doorman appears at the blush-pink façade of Palazzo Donà Giovannelli, opening a portal into frescoed ceilings, ornate stucco, and Murano chandeliers. The theatrical quality of this arrival is entirely deliberate — and it sets the register for everything that follows.

The palazzo was built in 1436 during the height of the Venetian Republic, passed through some of Venice's great noble families, and became one of the city's leading cultural salons before architect Giovanni Battista Meduna introduced its neo-Gothic interiors in the mid-19th century: the octagonal staircase, the lavish reception rooms, the ornamental vocabulary that now forms the bones of the hotel. Over nearly a decade of restoration — drying foundations, building a dam around the façade walls, removing and treating each individual stone, with hundreds of artisans working across fresco restoration, sculpture, gilding, and woodwork — Lebanese architect and designer Aline Asmar d'Amman prepared the building for its latest chapter.

"Beyond a monument to history, I see Orient Express Venezia as a living story, where the past shapes the future — one moves through layers of history." — Aline Asmar d'Amman

Her approach was to resist turning the palazzo into a museum piece. Original frescoes meet mirrored walls. Silk, velvet, and embossed leather run into patinated plaster, carved timber, and time-worn stone. The palette draws on what Asmar d'Amman calls Venice's lost colours — the rich reds, ochres, blues, and greens that once animated the city before centuries of salt air softened them — finding fullest expression in the sorbet-hued Salone Vittoria and the Sala della Cultura, crowned by a lapis lazuli ceiling. The six Signature Suites, the largest spanning 145 square metres, incorporate 19th-century frescoes depicting mythical winged figures and vast marble fireplaces. The Cherubini Suite houses a 1958 Carlo Scarpa chandelier alongside a vintage Murano chess table.

Dining is split between the all-day La Casati — inspired by Marchesa Luisa Casati, who famously walked her pet leopard through Piazza San Marco — and Heinz Beck Venezia in the restored orangerie. The Wagon Bar's art deco aesthetic nods to the golden age of rail travel. A walled garden, almost unheard of in this part of Venice, provides rare tranquillity. A spa borrows from Roman, Venetian, and Ottoman bathing traditions.

Cannaregio is not the Venice of postcards. But then, Palazzo Donà Giovannelli does not need postcards.

Key takeaways

• Aline Asmar d'Amman's decade-long restoration of Palazzo Donà Giovannelli — involving foundation drying, stone-by-stone wall treatment, and hundreds of artisans working across fresco restoration, gilding, and woodwork — was guided by the conviction that the palazzo should be a living story rather than a museum piece, pairing original frescoes and carved stone with mirrored walls, silk, velvet, and embossed leather.
• The interior palette draws on Venice's lost colours — the rich reds, ochres, blues, and greens that once characterised the city before salt air softened them into powdery hues — finding its fullest expression in the sorbet-hued Salone Vittoria, the lapis lazuli-ceilinged Sala della Cultura, and the Colori Persi suite, while the Cherubini Suite weaves a 1958 Carlo Scarpa chandelier with a vintage Murano chess table.
• Orient Express Venezia's location in Cannaregio — a neighbourhood where Venetians actually live, home to the Jewish Ghetto and the Gothic church of Madonna dell'Orto — combined with its rare walled garden, water entrance onto the canal, and a spa drawing from Roman, Venetian, and Ottoman bathing traditions, gives it a tranquillity and authenticity that more prominent Venice addresses rarely achieve.