Suspended Landscapes

Aim of thesis is to put a spot light on places, that can be defined as suspended landscapes; abandoned places, that despite of its history are now in state of neglect. Architecture and architects have to try to regenerate this places that are part of collective heritage. Thesis’s aim is to work on Poveglia’s island, a deserted shard in Venetian lagoon.

Research project has goal to reuse, re-convert and transform inhabited spaces of Poveglia island. It comes from considerations about needs of contemporaneity, to wonder about how to restore identity in places, which have suffered processes of decommissioning and abandonment; in order to develop strategies aimed to valorize the rich heritage of goods, that distinguish Venetian lagoon and the entire territory. Venice, city of water, is a weak ecosystem, that can’t exist without its lagoon; made of numerous shards, abandoned islands, waiting for a new possibility of development, stratified places that keep collective memory. Poveglia island is a suspended landscape, disputed between intentions of privatization and hypothesis of reuse suggested by community. Project grow from desire to question oneself about modalities, through which regenerate a place; after disposal processes, starting from research of its lost identity. The charm of this place is linked to its many identities and contradictions, a place disputed between land and water, artifice and nature, past and becoming. Project lives of co-presences, establishing a dialogue among new and ancient, permanence and variation, in order to actualize and to revive existing artifacts. Poveglia once the gateway to the Venetian lagoon, has lived a history characterized by profound discontinuities and has lost its connections and relationships with the city, over time, until its has been definitive abandonment in the seventies. It is from interrupted relationships, that fascination, for a place, that’s waiting for its destiny and new possibilities. Art can be instrument for the regeneration process, a way to put a spotlight on a suspended landscape, such as Poveglia, reactivating lost relationships, therefore island could become a microcrosm, an incubator for contemporary art, according to Venice's important role inside global art panorama. Project works among past and continuity, with interventions of reuse, grafting on existing buildings and by inserting other, which can host academic and exhibition spaces for contemporary art.