How Laguna B Is Reinventing Murano Glass for a New Generation

Founded by Marie Brandolini in 1994, Laguna B began with a vision of recreating a form of glassware typically made by the assistant glass masters of Murano, Italy. Using the leftover materials from their workshops, the artisans would create vibrant, colorful cups called goti de fornasa—“drinking glasses of the furnace” in the Venetian dialect—to bring home and drink from with their families. After meeting with a few of the small, family-run workshops in the early ’90s, Brandolini organized small productions of goto-inspired glasses in arresting color combinations, advising them to embrace the aesthetic details that were left to chance. Within the meticulous technicality of Murano glassmaking, a trade often passed from generation to generation, the beauty of these handmade products lies in every glass having a unique form.

Marie Brandolini’s love of glass objects was shared by her second husband, then the director of the Louvre, whose extensive collection was on display at their family home in Venice. Brandolini’s son, Marcantonio, spent much of his upbringing trying to avoid breaking his mother and stepfather’s irreplaceable glass objects while playing soccer in the house as a child. He never expected that in 2023, as the brand approaches its 30th anniversary, it would be him placing a line-up of goto glasses behind the display case of Laguna B’s first store.

In 2014, Marie Brandolini passed away from cancer. For the following five years, Laguna B operated without leadership, until Marcantonio Brandolini took over in 2019. Before then, Brandolini had been living abroad, and was largely uninterested in returning to his home city of Venice. After studying in England and working at a car company in Milan, he developed a newfound appreciation for the Venetian lifestyle and decided to move back. Along the way, he realized that the “really chaotic glasses—colorful and perfect” that were so central to his mother’s life also represented Venice’s potential to become the cultural and creative epicenter that it was at the height of its historical glories.