VENICE: city development maps

Maps, maps, maps. Theres something therapeutic about tracing old maps; figures of cities twisting and turning from the centre to its water edges. Mindless work it appears to be at times, but I like feeling the city change at my fingertips...  Through my initial research most authors seem to speak of the birth of the city from nothing. I would like to think that Venice always existed, exactly like she is today. As Tiziano Scarpa wrote, "its been sailing since the dawn of time; its put in at every port." Like a fish thats always swam, before every man, Venice the fish stations herself within Adriatic in almost her present day form. Although this may be simply a glorified personification of the city, it is interesting to to suggest that Venice as a city form seems to emerge from the sea during the second century AD. Prior to 'Paolino' map of 1346 (Library of St. Mark) no graphic illustration of the city seems to exist. The above development maps begin to explain how Venice was already a condensed centre from its first centuries. It's organic shape would remain for almost six centuries. By 1843, the island city was part of a modern state, and linked to the mainland by a three mile railroad bridge. This in turn allowed the mechanized world to beckon on her heels thus the beginning of the alterations to Venice's physiognomy and the destruction of ancient buildings.

Thesis Abstract

Venice: Nostalgia and the Migropolis

       They say everyone wants to possess the city of Venice. To see it, to conceive it, to judge it, to buy a small piece of it; so much that it has quite arguably become a perversion of sorts. No longer is Venice the fragile isolated jewel jealously admired by its natives, but rather a minute representation of the effect of industrial development and globalization. The city, once an impressive commercial Republic, physically tied itself to terra firma (via a bridge) in an effort to assimilate itself to the only feasible model of development, consequentially forcing Venice to concentrate its uses and activities, thus establishing an iconic tourist destination. 

               Today, Venice has become the ‘global city’ where two rivers meet and collide- one driven by pleasure and amusement, and the other portraying all too real paths of emigration and need. As Plato once said, ‘for indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are [constantly] at war one another; such is the case of war within Venice.  Plagued with over 7 million tourists per year, Venice is feared to have turned into a museum of culture and a perversive all too real Disneyland, meanwhile its residents flee to the mainland in search of economical and daily stability. In effect, Venice has gradually lost its ability to represent itself through its territory (the lagoon) and has arguably ceased to understand itself as a metropolitan system. 

               What is the Venice for the modern man?  Should Venice the zeropolis continue to exploit herself as the ultimate destination of our urban experiments, or become, rather to return as the commercial centre of culture, knowledge and ecology of the Adriatic? Perhaps, it would be best to let Venice, the fish, swim away once more. Nonetheless, this thesis therefore concerns itself with the transversality of the urban territory of Venice subjected to the conditions of globalization and seeks to solve the contradictions of the city: richness and poverty, massive tourism and the escape of inhabitants, and a city for living versus the place for passing through. It seeks to understand the nostalgic Venice living in memories not forgotten, in order to provide an opportunity for its rebirth.

Thesis Poster:

The attached poster acts as the graphic introduction to the thesis. The poster tries to depict the 2 dimensionality of the city of Venice; a place for living and place for passing through.  Imagine a city so divided in terms of function, a city where imaginary lines separate permanence from the temporary. Where cultural/historical life competes and feeds globalization. Whether your truly a Venetian or a tourist, Venice has always been a city of two faces. Here (poster), Venice the city of culture looks at herself in the mirror and begins to witness her all to present side of emigration, industrialization, consumer waste, mobility, and tourism.