Futurist Architecture | Towers of Venice by Namzke

Hey Steemit Artist Community,

It's been awhile since my last post. As promised, I wanted to share one of my futurist architectural projects. This project was a proposal submitted for the Venice biennale circa 2010 or so. It is stage in Venezia, Italy. The project investigate the future of cities in the framework of environmental change over the course of 2 decades.

Commentary by Artist Namzke

Hey I hope this narrative address the framework of the project. In a nutshell this project raises the questions on how we precieve and design for cities of the future. What are cities? Are they designed and developed as systematic machine or do they grow organically like eco systems in nature? And in the instance of Venice, a city completely governed and operated for tourism, a socio economical phenomenon that has displaced its residence for commerce. Are vacant cities such as Venice, even considered a city? Does a city need people, or can they be autonomous and free from the human constraint?

Narrative:

Venice no longer exists as a city for contemporary living. The place now exists to sell nostalgic images of its past for the viewing pleasure of tourists seeking romanticism. This transient yet the ever-present flow of outsiders has influenced the cultural identity of the entire city, so much so that today's Venice relies completely on the continued interest of outsiders in order to sustain itself as a cultural relic. Tourism has become Venice's existential Other, and the nostalgia of tourism has frozen Venice's architecture within an artificial snap shot of its own past.

A city frozen by nostalgia becomes an elaborate theater where artifacts become props and residents become actors, similar to what one would see in the theatrical clockwork of Disneyland. Venice's economy has survived so far by maintaining this theatrical value. However, Venice's success as a hub for tourism has come at the expense of the city's viability as a lasting community. Since tourism dictates that their city must remain frozen in its past, Venice's residents do not have the opportunity to create their own contemporary culture. For Venice's permanent residents, there is no escape from theatricality, no opportunity for individualism or cultural identity; nothing progresses beyond the images and attributes that tourism has become so enamored with.

Void of contemporary culture and completely reliant on tourism, Venice's architecture has become a field of old modular vessels encasing artifacts that index moments in the city's history. Enter a new system of trains that connects this field back to mainland Italy. The flow of tourism will rise and more people will experience the old-world amusement of Venice. From a traditional perspective, the new Venice Train Terminal must function as an efficient way-point for filtering and processing incoming and outgoing traffic. However, this scenario does not afford Venice the opportunity for progression, for trains, by nature, are transitory interfaces. In other words, a traditional train station could only bring to Venice more of what it already had, amplifying its availability to tourism, yet plunging the city into deeper cultural stagnation.

This project proposes that Venice, as a city, is destined for more, and that the people of Venice deserve a new cultural beginning. Architecture can provide the foundation for this beginning, becoming the crucial framework for Venice to progress and grow into an enduring city for the future. The new Venice Train Terminal will not be limited to being a machine for trains and people. Instead, our site will become ground zero for Venice to be reborn as an entirely new city, elevated above the theater of empty nostalgia that old Venice has become. This vertical expansion will endure far into Venice's future, providing a new frontier for its people to escape from theatricality. Below this new layer of urban growth, old Venice will remain as a cultural relic, an artifact dedicated to the architecture of the past.

The first series of towers will rise over old Venice, fearlessly different from its surroundings. Not unlike the early criticism of the Eiffel Tower, the Venice Towers will likely be abhorred by residents and historical preservationists alike. However, the towers will become a new reference point for Venice to redefine its cultural identity. Venice and its people will gain a new identity, one that is self-determined and independent from the ideas transplanted by tourism. Through architecture, Venice will gain the opportunity to reexamine and explore ways to reconstruct the society and community it once lost.

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