How do you imagine Venice in the future? Francesca Barbini, FAI Venice

“A slow and beautiful Venice can offer and request ideas and visions from those who are yet to come.” Francesca Barbini, FAI Venice Delegation, for #RiscrivereilFuturo.

Venice possesses a magical charm these days, and we can see every bit of its small and great beauty; therefore, answering the three questions from the Associazione Piazza San Marco is particularly stimulating for me.

I imagine Venice in the coming months just as we see it today: slow, silent, welcoming, magical. A place that no one would want to lose, just as we had lost it in recent years.

The ongoing epidemic forces us to overturn the paradigm upon which the vision of the city has been based by its government and the interests that have, in recent years, imposed a direction of pure “disposable” consumption. Accustomed to the constant and inhuman invasion of all spaces, suddenly, a tiny and invisible organism has brought us back to earth and made us understand that a city survives only with its inhabitants.

The numbers on which intensive tourism exploitation relies will not be possible for many months. It is an opportunity to be seized with optimism.

If numbers will not be what saves the city, we can instead count on the quality of its offering to the world for a tourism that is no longer about consumption, but serves as the raw material for the creation of wealth.

We have inestimable heritage in the city: highly prestigious institutions such as the Art and Architecture Biennale, cultural centers like the city’s two universities active in all fields of research and both technical and intellectual creativity, a splendid theater with a centuries-old tradition and an excellent orchestra, museums and monuments worthy of a great metropolis, a significant number of foundations and cultural institutes, and then a vast array of expertise in all fields, including high-level craftsmanship and a glass industry that perpetuates a tradition of quality and refinement, always open to innovation and external contributions.

All of this is immersed in an extraordinary natural and social oasis that speaks to us of a revolutionary city model that has always welcomed and embraced visitors without prejudice, offering its incomparable quality of life to everyone.

A slow and beautiful Venice can offer, and at the same time request, ideas and visions from those who will come. I believe this is the only key to the future.

If we do not want to leave even what remains to a sinister fate already looming on the horizon, the best Venetians, who have long been calling for a living city, must be heard. Among the city’s many resources, politics cannot overlook the numerous, creative, and passionate citizens’ committees that attest to Venice’s inexhaustible civic vitality, despite the small number of its inhabitants.

I believe our city can become a hub for training and research in all fields. The foundations to start are there, but we can do better by constructively occupying spaces that are now abandoned and emptied of their historical meaning, such as the Arsenale, and offering them to craftsmanship, training, and research activities that will restore wealth to the city without distorting its identity.

The countless houses converted into “hit-and-run” tourist rentals can return to hosting the lives of its citizens and visitors. The insignificant shops selling trinkets of dubious origin can give way to activities functional to city life, and the squares will return to hosting children’s games, the only guarantee of a future.
This is the city we can now dream of.

Francesca Barbini, FAI Venice Delegation

For the project #RiscrivereilFuturo di Venezia, Venezia da Vivere and Associazione Piazza San Marco interviewed entrepreneurs, curators, directors of cultural institutions, rectors and university professors, hoteliers, event organizers, and citizens who live and work in Venice. An open debate with the citizenship to give rise to an idea of a city in balance with the environment, work, and its civitas.