The Punta della Dogana, or the Customs Point, is the triangular area on the tip of Dorsoduro where the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal both flow into the St Mark's Bay. It was built in 17th century, towards the end of the construction of the adjacent Church of St Mary of Health. However, there had already been buildings on the site since the beginning of the 15th century, which were used for docking and customs. The triangle consists of a series of arcades, which are surmounted by two stone Atlases holding a golden globe. On the globe stands the statue of Fortune looking out towards the bay and turning in the wind.
The Dogana da Mar, or the Sea Customs, was the name of the building in which customs officials would inspect the newly arrived ships. The building fell into disuse by the 20th century and though there had been plans of converting it into apartments or even a small hotel, they were never realized. In 2008 French billionaire and art collector Francois Pinault bought the premises and started a 20-million-dollar reconstruction project, employing Japanese minimalist architect Tadao Ando. Pinault had already bought Palazzo Grassi on the other side of the Grand Canal, making it a contemporary art museum. Ando repaired the external stucco and replaced the interior partitions with rectangular parallel walls. A year later the Punta della Dogana opened to the public as part of Pinault's museum complex. The space houses Pinault's permanent collection, as well as an occasional temporary exhibition that expresses the Frenchman's love of the unexpected. Pinault also had sculptor Charles Ray create a white statue of a boy holding a frog for the utmost tip. However, in 2013 the city authorities decided to replace it with a reproduction of the streetlamp that had stood on the spot before Pinault docked in Venice. The change caused a big outcry in the artistic community, with one critic labeling the act as "cultural darkness." The city proposed to move the statue to the Palazzo Grassi, but Ray refused.
Today the Punta della Dogana, even after the recent restoration and all the contemporary art that it houses, looks very much like the way it did at the end of the Venetian Republic. But then again, everything in Venice does.