Resilience of Venice, 2020

The overall theme is the resilience of Venice addressed in two different and complementary aspects. Firstly, the focus is on the physical and morphological components of the resilience. A historical perspective is presented of how the human interventions made by the Serenissima Republic changed the configuration of the lagoon to insure the survival of the city, its trade and civilization against its numerous enemies. The human interventions of the 20th century were economically driven and were meant to make the city and its region resilient for survival in a modern, industrialized world. The challenge for the future is to undertake further, and major, interventions to insure resilience to global warming and the danger of unprecedented sea level rise. Even the physical survival of the city, its millennial structure and unique way of living are at stake. Secondly, the focus is on the urban aspects of resilience, how this has evolved from the past to the present and must be reinvented for the future. The functions on the ground floor of the historic center are analyzed and the different types and activities drawn, underlining the importance of the productive activities and of the commercial and artisanal micro-fabric. These functions define the quality of living. The idea is to underline a perspective of the physical and social fragility of the city but also of its resilient capacity which, if properly managed, can reverse the trend that the city bears.