Italy

29 November 2023

The irresistible appeal of Venice’s unique light and architecture

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The interplay between Venice’s light and architecture creates a magical experience

The irresistible appeal of Venice’s unique light and architecture

One of the main attractions of Venice is light

The cause of my love affair with Venice is that strange, fabulous light. Each moment of the day new effects arise that generate some astonishing illuminations. The endlessly changing beauty of light on the water an its reflections on houses, churches and palaces is part of an interplay that exploits alluring optical effects but is also profoundly mystical. It is when art perfectly complements urban nature. Added by the fact that Venice has remained virtually unchanged for centuries. This urban environment is full of architectural styles and details seen nowhere else in Italy or the world. Even with this kind of visual appeal, let’s not forget that the Doge’s city is a real city, despite the many visitors enjoying the canals, gondolas and cooing pigeons on San Marco Square. It is a tangle of stones and water where normal residents pursue their business like anywhere else in the world.

The rhythm of the lagoon

Most cities are in a constant state of decay and transformation, demolition and rebuilding, but not Venice. In Venice, it seems that familiarity and memory dominate. Venetians hold their past cultural stories tight to themselves. No matter how big the crowds are at the Rialto Bridge, the residents think the city in the lagoon should be theirs. It is a veritable sentiment representative of the loss of a traditional, communal way of life in the face of tourism. The signs of daily life in the lagoon city are slowly draining away. It is no secret that the population of Venice is in steady decline. The number dropped last year below 50,000 for the first time in over 300 years. Residents complain about the lack of affordable housing, the high cost of living in a tourist-driven city, and the loss of businesses that sell essential items. Residents do not want Venice to become unhomely, to lose what was once familiar, safe, and stable. Venice wants to keep on writing her own story according to the rhythm of the lagoon.

Venice is the city of mirages

The cause of our love affair with Venice is that strange, fabulous light. Each moment of the day new effects arise that generate some astonishing illuminations. The endlessly changing beauty of light on the water an its reflections on houses, churches and palaces is part of an interplay that exploits alluring optical effects but is also profoundly mystical. It is when art perfectly complements urban nature. Added by the fact that Venice has remained virtually unchanged for centuries. This urban environment is full of architectural styles and details seen nowhere else in Italy or the world. Even with this kind of visual appeal, let’s not forget that the Doge’s city is a real city, despite the many visitors enjoying the canals, gondolas and cooing pigeons on San Marco Square. It is a tangle of stones and water where normal residents pursue their business like anywhere else in the world.

Tangible reality

There are more reasons to love Venice than the tangible reality of its light. Meeting friends, and locals who live there, to spend time together, laughing, eating and drinking, diminishes the influence of the tourist cliché of bell towers, arched bridges and gondolas. Though many have been seduced by its art, architecture, poetry and beauty, Venice is more than half a tourist trap and half a fairy tale or a library of our collective memory. It invites us to walk. There you are, exploring. Only then you will realise that in this urban labyrinth, water and architecture can be a hundred things at the same time. The truth is that everywhere you go, you will find the endlessly changing beauty of Venetian light. A light that is concrete and tangible through the senses. As a suggestion, read also our article about the unbuilt Venetian hospital project of the famous French architect Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier too recognised that there is no place on earth with such light. But be aware, in Venice nothing is ever quite certain. Enjoy the journey!

17 October 2023

What remains of Le Corbusier’s fascinating hospital project in Venice?

traveljus.com Featured, Hidden Gems, History, Italy, Traveljus online mag, Venice

Le Corbusier Venice Hospital project

Venice missed a huge opportunity in the 1960s to include contemporary architecture in its city shape. At the time, the French modernist architect Le Corbusier was invited to build an open-form hospital on three levels in San Giobbe. The idea was to extend the hospital site into the lagoon by building on stilts. Sadly, any hope to see the project completed faded in August 1965, when Le Corbusier died of a heart attack.

What remains of Le Corbusier’s fascinating hospital project in Venice?

A love affair with Venice

I have affection or respect for other cities, but with Venice, it is more: I treasure the architecture of this floating city. Fenced in by the rippling water of the lagoon, Venice has many admirers, including some you would not expect. None other than Swiss-French architect Charles Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, known as Le Corbusier, fell in love with Venice since his first visit in October 1907. Over time, the figurehead of modernism and a critic of many urban developments travelled again and again to the lagoon. Le Corbusier loved the human proportions of the Venetian alleys, the small arteries of the city. For the site in San Giubbe, Le Corbusier’s design strategy is an attempt not to eradicate history, but to translate it into the future, to shape it into something new. Le Corbusier seems to be someone who can transform the events of his own history or knowledge in architectural designs. It take a genius to fit a modernist building into a centuries old urban environment.

Research of urban proportions

Talk about a new hospital in San Giobbe started in 1959. In 1962, Mayor Giovanni Favaretto Fisca contacted Le Corbusier and asked him to be the architect in charge of the project. After some heated public debates, Venice decided on April 20, 1963, to announce a competition for Italian architects and engineers to submit proposals for the hospital project. With no clear winner of the competition, the hot potato arrived again on Le Corbusier’s plate. Le Corbusier moved to Venice for a first survey of the Venetian urban fabric in August 1963 . He calculates the proportions of Venetian streets and squares. The architecture of Venice is clearly horizontal, and the average building height 13.66 metres. There are only a few vertical exceptions, such as the tower of San Marco. Venice is a small city of only 8 km2, comparable to the historic city centre of Amsterdam. Like Amsterdam, buildings lay down on water, held up by stilts. The idea of a building on stilts extending over water, may originate from Le Corbusier’s interest in prehistoric lake dwellings in central Europe.

A horizontal hospital

Based on his research Le Corbusier concluded it was best not to alter the urban city shape, but rather extend it on stilts within the lagoon landscape. The Venice Hospital should not be built vertically, but built as a ‘horizontal hospital.’ In November 1964, a first draft arrived in Venice accompanied by a letter: “A hospital is the house of man. The key is the man, his height, his step, his eye, his hand. That is why the starting point will be his accommodation, the hospital room”. Three main levels were planned. The ground level with general services makes a connection with the city. On this level it is all public access. The second level is for medical care and technology. And the third level serves as the zone for hospitalization, plus a visitor area. The number 4 is leading. 4 rooms are placed side by side to form a so-called “care unit”. 4 care units are grouped together and are served by 4 “calli” or alleys. The route along the alleys, where patients can meet and relax, is organized in a similar way as the alleys of Venice.

Venice, a unique phenomenon

One of the most interesting contributions Le Corbusier made is his reflection on the position of the patient. Forced into his bed, the patient cannot enjoy a view of Venice. In Venice there is this thing called the “transenna”. It is the way buildings, water and light merge into a completely different image. Le Corbusier designed a system of ceilings and windows that capture these variations of natural light in the lagoon. Like this the patient can feel the “transenna” of Venice. Le Corbusier’s hope to see the Venice project completed vanished in August 1965 when he died of a heart attack, 87 years old, swimming below the cliffs at Eileen Grey’s house in Cap Martin, France.

Venice is a totality. It is a unique phenomenon” wrote Le Corbusier once. He saw Venice as a fluid city of human proportion, a city “of total harmony, integral purity and unity of civilization. In its most hidden corners and you will realize that in this urban enterprise one finds, everywhere, tenderness.” It is fitting, perhaps, that his final project was for Venice, the city he came to love so deeply.