Venice’s Nicelli Airport on the Lido celebrates its centenary with a special evening dedicated to the history and future of the airport, inaugurated in 1926 with the first flight on the Lido di Venezia–Vienna route. The event brings together memory, music and culture in a place that has represented one of the city’s most iconic gateways for a century.
The celebrations open at 5:30 pm with the inauguration of the exhibition A Century of Aviation. Nicelli Airport 1926–2026, curated by Vittorio Baroni, which traces a century of Venetian aviation through twelve panels exploring pioneers, international routes, cinema and high society. The exhibition will then be open to the public free of charge from August 15 until the end of September.
The highlight of the evening will be the Centenary Concert, featuring soprano Fabiana Visentin and tenors Rodrigo Trosino, Eduardo Hurtado Rampoldi and Francesco Paccorini, accompanied on piano by Tecla Cerchiara. Opening the concert will be 32 young “aspiring aviators”, aged between 4 and 11, who will launch one hundred colourful paper aeroplanes from the Nicelli’s viewing terrace: a joyful gesture celebrating a century of flight and looking symbolically towards the new routes of the future.
Featured image: Junkers aircraft taking off from the Lido © Junkers Archive
