Venice in the Future for Guido Zucconi, Architectural Historian, IUAV

Collateral Events of the Venice Biennale

Regulate flows in a rational and planned manner with an incentive policy, encourage access during less crowded seasons, organize events during “off” periods of the year, and promote less frequented areas: Guido Zucconi, architectural historian at IUAV University of Venice, for #RiscrivereilFuturo

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

Here are the proposals for the rebirth of Venice by Guido Zucconi, Architectural Historian at IUAV University of Venice.

How do you envision Venice in the future?

As an entity conscious not only of its past greatness but also of its current dimension as a great city, articulated between lagoon, estuary, and mainland: a major tourist center but also a center of studies and research, home to international organizations or their local branches, especially in the fields of art and environmental sciences.

A city that regains a regional centrality that has increasingly faded. A city that does not spend its time lamenting itself but knows how to look optimistically to the future. A city that banishes the word “death” forever, that does not waste time and money wondering whether it should end at Piazzale Roma or extend beyond the Pullman Bar.

What can politics and citizens do for a rebirth of Venice?

Seriously address the tourism issue, reversing the demagogic approach that has characterized recent decades; today the attitude oscillates between “free for all,” systematically applied, and invective against mass tourism (raised especially at the end of the season). Regulate flows in a rational and planned manner, not with unrealistic barriers, turnstiles, barbed wire, limited numbers, but with an incentive policy: encourage access during less crowded seasons through particularly attractive packages, launch events during “off” periods of the year, and find reasons of interest for visiting areas that are currently less frequented.

Not Venice as a whole, but a part of it is besieged by tourism: starting from this observation, much can be done by creating new centers of attraction and new reasons to visit.

Propose a specific idea in at least one of these areas: environment, residential life, work, culture, safety, tourism.

Creating major centers of attraction for international tourism means looking beyond Piazza San Marco and the monuments surrounding it. Today, many tourists’ visits are reduced to a simple round trip between the entry point and the Piazza.

A major center of attraction could be represented by the Arsenale completely restored to the city’s use (few know that it now belongs entirely to the Municipality of Venice). An attractiveness also linked to the presence of a Great Maritime Museum that, at the same time, should tell the story of Venice and the Serenissima.

The space and presence of water allow for a series of boats and ships placed alongside (and as part of) the museum proper. There are many successful examples in this field: the Maritime Museum of Amsterdam, located half in the headquarters of the East India Company and half in a large seventeenth-century vessel. Then there are the cases of the Museum of London/Canary Wharf located in an old port dock and Lisbon/Belem housed in the Jeronimos Monastery. All of them, through maritime events, tell the story of a nation. All are achieving great success, with high visitor numbers. People will continue to want to see Piazza San Marco and no one can prevent them; but if at least a third of tourists also go elsewhere, the pressure on the space and monuments of the Piazza will decrease proportionally.

Guido Zucconi, Architectural Historian at IUAV University of Venice.