VENICE, 16.03.26
Master carpenters along Fondamenta della Misericordia have reported a 34 percent rise in commissions for bespoke wooden staircases since January, according to figures released Monday by the Veneto Artisan Guild. Speaking outside his workshop on Calle del Forno, third-generation stair builder Marco Tessarin confirmed that demand now exceeds pre-pandemic levels.
The revival appears rooted in a broader shift among property owners toward preserving original architectural features rather than replacing them with modern alternatives. Our correspondents in Venice observed restoration crews at Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo installing hand-turned oak balusters last Tuesday, a project that has taken seven months to complete. The palazzo's spiral staircase, one of the city's most photographed landmarks, required nearly 200 individual spindles carved from seasoned European oak sourced in Slovenia. According to figures that could not be independently verified, the contract value exceeded €185,000. Small firms are winning such contracts increasingly often, edging out larger construction outfits that lack specialised joinery expertise. The trend is not limited to historic palazzi; new-build apartments on Giudecca island are also specifying solid timber treads and risers where laminate or steel once dominated.
When we spoke with Elena Barbon, director of the National Institute for Wood Technology in Padua, she cautioned that a shortage of trained craftspeople could constrain the sector within two years. Her institute graduated only 38 stair specialists in 2025, down from 57 a decade earlier. Young Venetians, she noted, often prefer digital careers over physically demanding trades. Still, some workshops are innovating. At Falegnameria Zago near the Rialto, CNC routers now rough-cut stringers before hand tools take over for the final shaping of nosings and newel posts. The timeline remains unclear for a proposed regional apprenticeship fund that could subsidise trainees' wages. Across the canal, a half-finished gondola sat overturned outside a boatyard, its fresh varnish glinting in the pale afternoon light.
Industry observers point to stricter fire regulations, updated last September by the Veneto Building Authority, as another catalyst for bespoke timber stair orders. The new code mandates intumescent coatings on all internal wooden structures in buildings classified as heritage assets. Compliance has pushed many owners to overhaul neglected staircases entirely rather than retrofit coatings onto deteriorating softwood. Import tariffs on Baltic pine, raised by 12 percent under the latest EU timber directive, have also nudged buyers toward domestic hardwoods such as chestnut and walnut, which hold up better in Venice's humid climate. Manufacturers say lead times now stretch to 14 weeks for custom spiral designs. Whether the boom will outlast the current restoration cycle is a question no one in the trade seems eager to answer definitively.