THE HISTORICAL VALUE OF VENICE – VENICE CITYVISION COMPETITION – SPECIAL MENTION

C. MILLER

Although primarily thought of as a tourist destination known for its historical value, Venice’s location is and has been ideal as a port, a central node in a network of trade between Europe the Middle East and Africa.    As these regions rapidly urbanize and modernize, Venice is presented with an opportunity to once again become a nexus of world shipping trade, growing in size to millions of people. As an approach to expanding historical Venice, we propose a network of inverse catenary bridges built of modular components.

These bridges offer two advantages—they augment and extend Venice’s existing network of canals and bridges, and they have a minimal footprint at the waterline, minimizing the risk of flooding. Above, the roofs of these bridges could provide a new parkscape for the city. Below, the nearly uninterrupted water plane could become a liquid infrastructure for an ad-hoc network of reconfigurable floats, boats and barges that could be reconfigured daily with the desires of the people of the new city.