OF STONES AND TRAVELERS
Tu Delft
Explore Lab Studio | Master Thesis
2019 | 2020
The Venetian Matter
a productive machine in its own consuming
Modern continuation of Venice's development
Porto Marghera
Venice, Italy
Venezia, la Serenissima.
The most serene Republic. One adjective is sufficient to identify the city of Venice; more complicated is to figure out its singularities: the city of canals, trades, cultural exchange, gate between the west and the east, the city of the myth, the romantic city, the city of the endless descriptions. “At once solid and liquid, at once air and stone”, claimed Erica Jong, almost as if she wanted to seize in a sentence the multiple facets of the Venetian character. The several representations and attributes that depict Venice not only precede its reality, but constitute a determinant part of its character: the island is simultaneously more than its narrations and more than its reality.
Starting from this dicotomy, the following project focuses on the analysis of Venice’s reality, the one of its present situation, by keeping its narrations as a boundary condition.
The consideration of Venice not being the most serene Republic anymore is a fact. The city is experiencing a transitional moment in its lifetime: events as tourists’ invasion, drop of the population, transformation of the building stock to accomodate tourists’ needs are determinant factors for the future of the city, internationally recognised as slowly dying. The transformations are influenced by the effect that phenomena as overtourism produced on the island. And it is precisely the relationship between overtourism and Venice the topic that is tackled in this project, by taking the city as a case study, a symbol in the broader discussion about city and overtourism.
Therefore this project does not want to be considered as a method for the definition of a solution for all the cities that are experiencing the aforementioned situation, but the opposite: the foundation for the development of an architectural proposal for the Venetian context, with the aim of invigorate the international debate around the topic of overtourism and cities’ transformations. Therefore, 'Of Stones and Travelers' is a project that relates with the city of Venice, considered as the symbol of the difficult relationship between cities and tourists, stones and travelers: the situation in which the city is transforming into a productive machine in its own consuming. It is by acknowledging this present condition that I have decided to analyse the city of Venice, by trying to understand what can be done, as architect, in order to affect its condition, with the aim of positively affecting its future.
The exploration perpetuated with the project aims to understand and test the way in which the permanence of visitors in Venice can be affected via architectural terms. The theoretical approach adopted to reach this goal is the one of developing an exploration of the logics that undermine the characters of the city of Venice, therefore their understanding and transposition into a modern design. It is important to clarify that such exploration is not an aesthetical re-interpretation of Venice but the opportunity to test how the assemblage of the city can evolve without being stuck in its picturesque idea. Therefore, the value that I have researched is the understanding of Venice as an assemblage, as a combination of different layers which relationship define the character of the city. Its dissection and application in modern time is the value I have tried to pursue in my design.
The topic tackled in my graduation project relates with the city of Venice and its current condition, the one that has seen the city to be transformed into a productive machine in its own consuming. Such condition of the city has been determined by the definition of its dichotomy, the contrast between its picturesque historical centre and the anonymous industrial character of its outskirt. It is precisely this condition that has affected the short permanence of the visitors on the island, successively triggering the transformation of the historical centre into a economic machine passively acting in response of the tourists’ needs and not anymore the ones of its citizens.
Therefore, the project aims to create new condition for living in the city by combining the two characters of the venetian dichotomy and demonstrate how Venice can still offer many solutions for its reinterpretation in modern time, without being stuck in its picturesque idea.
In order to achieve such goal, the project area has been identified in the Storage Tank Island, in the industrial area in the outskirt of Venice. The reason of the choice has been determined by the immanent presence of the two characters of Venice through the presence of oil tanks and for its nature of being an island.
It is by the regeneration into an expansion of the city of Venice that the project aims to redirect flows of tourists outside the main island by realeasing the touristic pressure that characterise it.
The design develops in-between the existing oil tanks, regenerated into social condensers and therefore as containers of new social functions. The in between spaces are divided in two different levels: the ground floor for commercial activities and the upper floor for residential units, expression of the two facets of the venetian dichotomy. It is by offering a modern interpretation of what Venice is as a city that the project presents itself as an alternative perspective on the future of the island, with the aim of affecting positively its future transformation.
