The future we must strive to achieve So why Venice matters today? Venice allows us to address very significant questions concerning our urban future. How do cities evolve as complex spaces nurturing both urban creativity and the fortuitous art of discovery? By which mechanisms they foster imagination and innovation? How do they adapt and sustain... Continue Reading →

The three artefacts as networks The analysis of Venice, Calvino’s novel and Le Corbusier’s Hospital is conducted to understand at a deeper level whether there are characteristics in the city that are creatively transposed from the city to the other two works. It also looks at what creative devices have been employed in crafting the... Continue Reading →

Venice in the Western imagination – the Myth of Venice What role does Venice play in the Western imagination? As Tony Tunner explained, Dickens entered Venice in a dream; Ruskin came to it replete with English notions of the Romantic to produce not art history but fiction; Canaletto distorted Venice to his own ideal perspectival... Continue Reading →

1. Why Venice matters today There is a pair of linked questions at the heart of this book: Why has Venice inspired, and continues to inspire, the imagination of so many artists, architects and ordinary people? Does Venice still matter today? More specifically, what matters most the individual creative output of buildings, architecture and works... Continue Reading →