Elements of Venice
Venice, as an annual place of Carnival, Venice Film Festival and many others, has a strong tradition of festivity, which influences architecture and urban design of the city. During the festive periods the city is flooded with crowds on the street, even balconies are full of audience. It used to be a stage for public life and the ceremonies were open to all social classes,in which roles everything, or almost everything was allowed. The city was conceived after a fondness of the art of display and today's Venice hasn't lost any of its theatre. However, the audience has changed. As Thomas Mann said, this city is half fairy tale and half tourist trap. The question, how to find the balance between inhabited city and touristic 'Disneyland', was a starting point for the design.
Venice offers a various historical periods and elements on a relatively small area with buildings that have a lifespan of hundreds of years. An architectural language in the context reflects a familiarity between the artifacts without imitation. Considering carefully the surrounding shapes, the design tries to achieve experience and memory of the place.
The new addition recognises the classical urban and architectural design thought. The mass of the Scuola Piccola, squeezed in between two large palazzi; Grazzi and Malipiero, continues the proportions of the Gran Canal buildings - the sumptuous facades mastered in the manner of a theatrical curtain. Thus, outward show and appearance were at the core of Venetian society, and a close relation with the ‘masque’ existed there. And according to the OED, ‘facade’ or ‘façade’ is a word used since the 1650s, borrowed from the French form façade and the Italian facciata, which in its turn come from the Latin form faccia or ‘face’. From the 1560s onwards, ‘to face’ acquires the meaning of ‘to cover with something in front’, which recalls the disguising nature of a mask. The new, narrow volume, curtain, mask stands in between - Campo San Samuele is a stage presenting the land and the main spectacle takes place on the water.
Campo forms its own specific urban interior, enclosed by the surrounding buildings like walls to an outdoor room, creating a deeply theatrical architectural arrangement: a stage for urban life. In Venice, we consider the festivity also as a day-to-day life. The campo, translated as 'field', has always been the heart of Venetian neighbourhoods. Initially unpaved, with a strong sense of Venetian identity clustered around a grassy space. The building, standing on the line, between the land and water, occupies the least space as it is possible. The grass grows up through the stone.
'Scuola piccola' is a contemporary rescaled interpretation of the Venetian historic example of Scuola Grande in an architectural exception within the fabric of Venice. A civic home for local rituals and festivities, maintained by the inhabitants of Venice stands at the one of the smallest campos in scale, Campo San Samuele, located along the Canal Grande, Venice’s main canal, integrating the vaporetto boat stop into a new building. The new addition steps down to the water, making it part of the building and enabling it to function as the theatrical backdrop for the vaporetti and regatta boats that pass by every minute of the day. The ground floor and the terrace are places where Venetians and tourists meet each other.
Venice is a city of rooms and corridors.
The doors entering rooms are aligned with the doors of the connecting rooms, along a single axis, providing a vista through the entire suite of building. The simple axis adds invisible layers to the building.
The interiors organised horizontally continue 'in between' relation. Huge thin windows open the view for the water and regular, singular windows
on the other side remain in touch with a view of day-to-day festivity.
It is a city of Istrian stone, steel and wood, the city still standing because of the millions of tree trunks that have been piled into the marshes. Pre-cast concrete ground floor protects the building from high raised water level and wooden structure makes it future sustainable.
The grass will grow up through the stones.
According to the OED, ‘facade’ or ‘façade’ is a word used from the 1650s, borrowed from the French form façade and the Italian facciata, which in its turn come from the Latin form faccia or ‘face’. From the 1560s onwards, ‘face’ acquires the meaning of ‘to cover with something in front’, which recalls the disguising nature of a mask.
But The question, how to find the balance between inhabitated city and touristic "Disneyland" will come back. The city is conceived after a fondness of the art of display, which its citizens mastered like no one all along the sumptuous facades of the Grand Canal, in the manner of a theatrical curtain. Thus outward show and appearance were at the core of Venetian society, and there existed a close relation with the ‘masque’ . The term ‘masque’ developed a special sense of ‘amateur theatrical performance’ during Elizabethan times, especially in the 1560s, when such entertainments were popular among the nobility. For Shakespeare, the concept goes beyond the mere theatrical sense .
My proposal - like a curtain, mask - the narrow volume stands in between- Campo San Samuele is a stage presenting the land and the main spectacle takes place on the water. The interiors continue relation to the both sides.
My proposal - like a curtain, mask - the narrow volume stands in between- Campo San Samuele is a stage presenting the land and the main spectacle takes place on the water. The interiors continue relation to the both sides.
The doors entering rooms are aligned with the doors of the connecting rooms, along a single axis, providing a vista through the entire suite of buildings. The simple axis adds invisible layers to the building, making it open to the all directions.
La grande Ilusion
It is a city of illusion. On the façade of Palladio's Redentore II a central triangular pediment overlies a larger, lower one. Illusionistic facade of Scuola Grande di San Marco confuses people what is a real part of the of the fifteenth century building's front and the paintings play tricks with linear perspective. The new addition wants to be visible in a different way from every point of the Canal Grande. Last floor, with a terrace open for public uses diagonal line to act with changing perception.
