"Clarice, the glorious city, has a tormented history. Several times it decayed, then burgeoned again, always keeping the first Clarice as an unparalleled model of every splendor, compared to which the city's present state can only cause more sighs at every fading of the stars."(Calvino p.106)
"Of the First of these great powers only the memory remains; of the Second, the ruin...." (Ruskin p.13)
Its physical structure did almost not change over time, even down to single floor plans, as the very work- and money-intensive act of creating artificial islands and stable foundations for each wall determined their shapes forever.
Ironically this is one of the reasons why Venice today is fragmented: the tied structures don't give enough room for changing commercial, cultural and residential requirements. Almost all commercial activities, not regarding tourism, occur today in Mestre, the mainland part of Venice but completely unrecognizable as "Venice". Biennale, youth culture, beach culture, sports activities take place in Mestre, Lido and the other communities along the Lagune, and it is not Venice but Verona which houses the grand operas and musical events. The vast majority of Venetians live today also in modern suburbias with "light, air and sun", parking lots, easy access and social neutrality, indistinguishable from the suburbias all over the world; it is these "objective" qualities of housing that the old Venice cannot provide.
The old city of Venice remains as a fragment and a caricature of the original city, as a major tourist attraction, as a museum of the medieval art of urban planning and construction, as an inspiring and romantic dream of an ideal city. It is an ideal city left by 80% of its original inhabitants and replaced by Woody Allens and other part time Venetians plus annoyed seasonal workers in the tourism industry.
Venice already today is a dead city, even more so in the near future since it will be dying in terms of its building structure. The lack of permanence and consequent responsibility of a part-time population combined with one of the world's most difficult to handle building substance stands for fast decay. There is no sewage system improving the water quality of the lagoon and subsequently protecting the wooden foundations, there is no opposition against the deepening of the ship passage to the lagoon and the subsequent missing barrier against the high waters of the Mediterranean Sea, there is no attempt to improve with an ingenious Venetian solution the transportation system which is completely inadequate for a living contemporary city, no attempt to allow changes and additions to accommodate business activities.
A very recent initiative by the EC for the revival of a dying city sponsors a project in the Arsenale Venezia for a center for advanced shipbuilding Technology; the designs for an Institute for Modern Music and an Institute for Cartography follow on this line. The goal is to take advantage of the "cleanness" of the activities of the informational age and to improve the economic and social balance of the city in an appropriate, maybe soft, way.
Other chapters:
1 Venice I
3 Venice III
4 Browsing
5 Blueprint
6 Construction
7 Bigness
8 Lille
9 Literature