Venice exists as a paradigm of emergent urban form at the intersection of human and environmental dynamics, a living critique of the history of top-down urban design that has dominated western architecture from Ancient Rome, through the Renaissance, to the modern city. It evolved from a complex set of building and public space typologies into a remarkably coherent if formally unfamiliar urban structure. Venice represents an extraordinary break from concepts of the city that preceded it and grew over centuries as a vital and resilient political, economic and cultural construct.
Rather than viewing Venice as a historical artifact, we will be studying the underlying spatial and material structure of the city, and the connections across scales from building details to urban form. The lessons of these studies hold clues to the imagination of the future of the city.
The module will be set up as a workshop, meeting on Friday mornings prior to our departure for Venice, as preparation for work that will continue through site visits and field trips while abroad. While in Charlottesville, we will conduct a series of diagramming projects, graphic explorations and readings. Comparisons between Venice and other cities will inform the research. The lessons of these studies will then fold into the studio work that students are pursuing as part of their research in the broader program.
Seminar: Cities as Dynamic Spatial and Material Systems
Workshop: Tracing Urban Structures: Verona, Vicenza, Treviso, Bressanone, Venice
Reading:
Seminar: Urban Spaces – the Forms of the Public Realm
Workshop: Campi and Piazze of Venice and the Veneto
Reading:
Seminar: Material Formations of the City and Landscape
Workshop: Foundations, Walls, and Frames
Reading:
Seminar: Building Form and Urban Culture
Workshop: Reading the Typologies of the Urban and Landscape Fabric
Reading:
In Venice and the Veneto, there will be walking and sketching tours, explorations of the city, recording in sketchbooks. Spaces to be diagrammed on site (at least two from each category, additional cities may be included, esp. Padua, Bologna, Florence, Trieste):
Diagrams of city plan in relation to layers of time and landscape
Sites other than scheduled visits to be distributed in Venice – find at least five and diagram
Upon return – discussion sessions TBD, compiling, curating and formatting of studies for final submission on December 18.