This inquiry addresses the complex issues this site evokes through a broad analysis of pertinent cultural precedents that open the way to a multilayered or stratified methodology based on the classification of elements and events. These elements, and groups of elements and events, play a significant role in defining a footprint upon which an eventual design concept may take shape, enabling the final design concept to become an urban/landscape project. Getting to know the different - and, in some respects, new - reality of the area makes it possible to go beyond established notions of urban planning, therein providing the most thorough guidelines possible, permitting a more careful and more efficient approach to the city’s varied potential transformations. 

Talking about “architecture-landscape” as one expression comprised of two terms might reveal and give meaning to a new conception of urbanism (at different scales of design, for example), promoting another way of intervening on the territory through policies aimed at greater environmental sustainability. In the late twentieth century, there were in fact many examples of stimulating, innovative, theoretical and practical experiments in planning and design. On the one hand, there was interest in treating open spaces as urban “scenes,” attempting to create an architecture of the landscape that was considered not only as an autonomous discipline in the tradition of landscape architecture but also as a flexible contemporary design strategy that could be adapted to different circumstances, issues, and the propensities of the (geographical) territory and the (ecological and anthropological) environment. On the other, architecture was conceived as a metaphor for the landscape that could synthesize and express its visual and mental character through architectural “fragments,” transforming it through the evocative force of a poetic architectural language.

In both cases, however, it was not yet possible to formulate a clear methodological approach. Perhaps this might be possible by placing strong emphasis on the context and, more specifically, by contemplating the idea of intervening on the natural environment (therein accounting for ecological sustainability) without forgetting that the final aim of design is to create spaces in which people live. In the near future however - precisely because “everything in the twenty-first century is urban even in the midst of wild nature,” as Bernard Tschumi points out in his Downsview Park Toronto project - we will have to get used to unexpected urban solutions (Charles Waldheim).

Perhaps now, in planning projects that are to be built today, the lack of clarity about what the “landscape” really is might actually reflect a similar theoretical “confusion” about the very origin of this “idea” of space. Starting from the etymology of the word “landscape,” one discovers that in German, Dutch and English the root of the terms Landschaft, landschap and “landscape” is defined by “land,” which means “portion of a territory.” Whereas in French and Spanish, the terms paysage and paisaje are like the Italian paesaggio, which is a “recent” neologism meaning “representation”; the original root of which is similar to the Italian paese or the place where one lives. This representation comes close therefore to the “cultural” vision that evolved in the history of art, in the work of Flemish and German painters at first and later in that of Italian and British artists. 

The first document referring to the idea of landscape in the full sense of the word dates back to 1521 and actually refers to the Venetian collections of Flemish painters. The phenomenon developed throughout the Italian Renaissance, more than a century earlier than its evolution in the panorama of British culture.² Coming back to Venice, however, from the late seventeenth century on, a pictorial technique for representing the landscape began to mature with the so-called vedutisti veneti [landscape artists from the Veneto region - Ed.], the main exponents of which were Canaletto, Francesco Guardi and Bellotto. Others, however, such as Vincenzo Coronelli and Gianfrancesco Costa, developed different visions
(Figs. 1, 2). In depicting the “villa,” the latter actually went beyond the concept of the single dwelling, opening to the representation of a sort of “urban agglomeration” in the countryside, actually known as a villaggio (village), a word synonymous with paese.³

What must be addressed here therefore is the notion of a “modern landscape” project in Venice, to be built in the area between the Venetian lagoon and the Venetian mainland and thus in the lagoon. But given what has just been said, how can the fundamental role of this landscape be defined?

Every time one works in an area as sensitive, and as full of history and constraints as the Venice lagoon, it is extremely difficult to make decisions because ultimately it is never fully clear exactly from which landscape one must start. It is not certainly an “uncontaminated” landscape. Quite the contrary. Given the history of these areas, the landscape has always originated, as Camporesi aptly states, from the territory‘s continuous transformations, which were crucial to the survival of Venice and its lagoon (Fig. 3).

In support of this approach, one can also recall significant examples in modern planning/design in both America and Europe. Ludwig Hilberseimer, for instance, maintained that a “city will be within the landscape and the landscape within the city.” ⁶ Interestingly, the various settlements proposed were to be combined without necessarily adhering to specific plans for preexisting cities. Hilberseimer sought to identify the actual elements that had be conjoined to reach a theoretical vision, in as much as close scrutiny of reality could actually change the solutions proposed: “For city planning is not an abstract task. It is the fulfillment of human needs; the realization of human aims.” ⁷ Designers in Europe as well, affiliated with radical architecture of the 1970s, reexamined the idea of landscape (Fig. 4). And, finally, between America and Europe there were three great “modern visions” of landscape in the city: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City (1935–40), Ludwig Hilberseimer’s New Regional Pattern (1945–49) and Andrea Branzi’s Agronica (1993–94). These three outstanding projects from the mid- to late twentieth century summarize the notion of landscape urbanism.⁸

To broaden our point of view, it is interesting to note that many writers, working within the phenomenon known as “literary architecture,” gave rise to a new way of seeing the landscape, establishing artistic analogies with architecture more than the other arts.⁹ Reversing this logic, one might draw upon a methodological approach employed in literature to help define a new methodology for architecture and the landscape. Georges Perec’s Penser/Classer ¹⁰ is particularly significant in this light. Attempting to outline a methodology for design/planning based on a similar notion of classification, it becomes clear that the aim is that of identifying a new way of thinking about vast stretches of the landscape by trying to classify it and to recognize it for what it is, with its present, obviously past, and even future elements. These considerations, in turn, lead to the goal of “coining” a “new” conception of the landscape in which the traditions of a place and spatial innovation can coexist.

Ludovico Quaroni’s project for the shoals of San Giuliano was designed in 1958 (Fig. 6) ¹² and is one of the most significant Italian projects of the last century. Apart from the coincidence of being in the same area as the project in question, it also introduces an important concept under investigation here. In speaking about the elements of the landscape’s stratification and sedimentation, Camporesi refers not only to physical interventions in the territory but also to projects that were planned/designed for that area but never implemented. Regarding these “intentions,” it may also be useful to refer to Aldo Rossi’s comments on the neoclassical transformations of Milan noted in The Architecture of the City.¹³ In discussing Giovanni Antolini’s project for Foro Bonaparte, which was never built, Rossi states that “projects have an existence of their own just like built architecture.” For him, the Foro has a place in the city as a real element that is reflected in subsequent urban transformations.¹⁴ For the site in question, Quaroni’s project might actually help determine the guidelines for transforming the (urban) landscape in this part of the city. In Antonio Di Mambro’s project for the park of San Giuliano, there are actually certain traces of curved forms reminiscent of Quaroni’s hemispheres (Fig. 7).¹⁵ Of even greater importance, however, is the fact that, thanks to Quaroni’s project, this part of the territory was assimilated into the urban context and therein opened to development. Quaroni’s project gave rise to a different relationship between the mainland, the lagoon and the historic city, the “peripheral” vision of the mainland giving way to a new centrality in which the mainland became an integral part of the lagoon 

The footprint of the project is based on this new interpretative code. It is a footprint determined by a “stratigraphic” procedure not unlike an archeological dig, done patiently layer by layer. The first layer accounts for the area’s physical transformations; the second for its history and the stratification of projects, in which Quaroni’s design, for example, represents a new landscape value. (Fig. 9) 

The footprint is a particularly effective starting point in this kind of research and must be investigated thoroughly until a convincing system for the landscape - and therein the urban project - can be conceived. It is also highly significant in terms of environmental conservation, the term itself “footprint” being key in the field of ecology. 

The project for this urban area is now in a phase of preliminary planning. These notes prefigure and accompany a process that will eventually involve many different, highly specialized practitioners. In addition to satisfying the client’s needs, the project will have to respond to complex, extremely varied technical issues and bureaucratic procedures. What is proposed here is not a theoretical investigation. It is a truly methodological approach aimed at exposing the common ground on which the project’s different souls may be compared to reach one primary, fundamental conviction: namely, that what is planned and designed here will have to establish comprehensive development guidelines for this important part of the city of Venice, where an urban project cannot but have strong implications for the landscape (the “landscape project” is an “urban project”).

The research for this project is focused primarily on the following issues:

• recovering the landscape’s identity through its specific elements;

• emphasizing the joint goal of (urban) “architecture-landscape”;

• underscoring a vast metropolitan scope (città metropolitana);

• veering today’s Venice-centered “tourist mode” toward a new conception of the metropolitan area;

• leaving a true “territorial footprint” in the lagoon of the metropolitan city of Venice.

• The sections of territory’s skyline attempt to provide a vantage point from which the conditions and opportunities for developing the landscape may be understood. The sections in the first part represent the current state of affairs and are basically a survey. Those that follow include examples of some of the urban events previously identified, to open to what might be developed upon what has previously been possible/desirable.

When some of the aspects previously exemplified are introduced into the project, multiple solutions emerge. Combining a pragmatic approach (i.e. focusing on what has to be done) together with a comprehensive knowledge of the territory will make it possible to thoroughly examine and evaluate these hypotheses.

The first step required mapping all of the fields in the remaining countryside. The historical and current road networks were then superimposed upon this. Finally, the visual axes of the Canale delle Rotte and the ideal view towards St. Mark’s bell tower were added.

This is a project that focuses on the Venice lagoon, not just on the mainland and not just on Venice. The stratifications of these elements and the traces of these “lines” will make it possible to construct an actual footprint, an accurate territorial “mark” that can become a clear signature of a part of the territory.

The project has been developing continuously with respect to these initial considerations. What must be established now are the pre-conditions to exploring a planning/design concept. What is important is taking measure and preliminary steps, establishing the relationships, heights, and conditions that the project will have to take into account. After that, the project will evolve - almost on its own - leading to even unexpected urban solutions (Figs. 11, 12).