Mario Berta | Venice: I am not making this up

A friend has sent this image of Marino Menegazzo’s gold leaf in Los Angeles.

The caption in Wikipedia (public domain) explains that the original 1939 building was home to the May company department store. For the curious, the style is Art Deco and Streamline Moderne. Formerly part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art campus, since 2021 it houses The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, located on Wilshire Boulevard at the western end of the “Miracle Mile.”

Lest you think, as I did at first, that the cylinder’s surface itself is covered with gold leaf (I tip my hat to the legendary Ca’ d’Oro on the Grand Canal), let me clarify that it is made of more than 350,000 glass and gold-leaf mosaic tiles. Some of the original tiles were so deteriorated that they had to be replaced, so preservation specialist John Fidler turned to the original producer, Orsoni, in Venice. Not for the first time, Orsoni turned to Menegazzo for the required leaves of gold to be placed within the new glass tiles.

That’s all I know but it made my day.

Menegazzo in Los Angeles