A Guided Tour of Contemporary Venice

General / People / Places / December 13, 2012

Venetian architecture is not limited to the Moorish, Byzantine or Gothic styles alone, as anyone who’s stayed at the Philippe Starke-designed Palazinna G Hotel can attest.  But by calling our attention to Cristina Gregorin’s tours of modern architecture in Venice, JoAnn Locktov now raises our consciousness too.  JoAnn’s a publicist, a Venetophile and a writer who’s editing a new book on Venice, with photographs by Charles Christopher.   She recently returned from an extended stay there, and has agreed to write a few posts about it for A+A.  We’ll run Part II of this one tomorrow.

By JoAnn Locktov:

When you think of architecture in Venice, your mind invariably goes to the grand structures of historical importance. These include the buildings of Palladio and Sansovino, and the Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance edifices that have favored Venice with allure and significance.

Cristina Gregorin perceives Venice differently. She asks that you consider a contemporary Venice, a place where modern art, craft and architecture have been meticulously integrated and yet are often overlooked by the more than 20 million visitors who descend annually.

Gregorin is a tour guide by profession.  In 1991 she passed an exceptionally rigorous exam (considered the most grueling in Italy) to become a licensed guide. With her encyclopedic knowledge of historical Venice she might have been content with an immersion in the same art and architecture that conferred upon it the status of UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Instead, she has invested in the uncommon practice of dignifying contemporary Venice.

Her tours explore the architectural works of Carlo Scarpa, Santiago Calatrava, Tadao Ando, and Aldo Rossi, all notable 20th century architects. She organizes tours not only of fine artists’ ateliers, but those of masterful artisans working in the legendary materials of glass, paper, marble and iron.

Gregorin, a PhD in Contemporary Literature and  author of four books, holds the past and present together with expert stitches. Her impassioned discussion of Scarpa’s restored Olivetti Negozio fluctuates between anecdote and analysis of his devotion to light, water and material. She makes visible his wide range of inspiration, from Titian to Klimt, and crowns her presentation with a convincing demonstration of Scarpa’s influence on Tadao Ando’s restoration of the Punta Della Dogana.

She also looks to the future, saying “I refuse to consider my city as a ‘Veniceland.’  We have to look forward, not only backwards. Living in Venice means having responsibilities toward our great past. We must maintain and protect it. But the relationship between past, present and future in Venice is more complicated than in any other historic city. We have nowhere to expand. Every time we build something new, we are obligated to demolish something. 

“If you create an open air installation, it will be surrounded by architectural masterpieces of Western and Mediterranean culture,” she says.  If you are a painter, you are confronted at every step with Titian, Tintoretto, Bellini, and Tiepolo. And yet, in spite of such difficult confrontations, we must give both the city and ourselves a future. What we create today will be the heritage of future generations, the memory we leave of ourselves. We must understand this process in order to grant Venice a future.”

For more on Cristina Gregorin, go to http://www.contemporary-venice.com/

For more by JoAnn Locktov, go here

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Mike Welton




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6 Comments

on March 28, 2014

Wow, we are in for a treat to have Cristina as a tour guide while we are in Venice. Thank you in advance for whatever you had to do with this. XOXO

on December 15, 2012

On the strenght of its past, and an undisputed landmark for art and colture, Venice today continues being a contemporary city. Rhythms and lifetimes here are totally different from any other city in the world

on December 14, 2012

Great article. Thank you! Definitely a new and refreshing approach to this fascinating place.

on December 14, 2012

It has to be very interesting and fascinating to go with Cristina Gregorin to enjoy the contemporary Architecture of Venice and in the same time to discover the modern life in this city!
Max

on December 14, 2012

That’s great! Fortunately, people starting to see Venice as a whole city, not just the two segments of Biennale and History. There is a bunch of beautiful, contemporary and modern life to feel and to see in Venice and Cristina can prooves it.

on December 13, 2012

Thank you. This is an insightful article about a superb guide (in the interests of full disclosure I must admit that I am privileged to call her a friend), who possesses unusually broad knowledge of Venice. No surprise then that her historic tours should be deep and beautiful. But for Cristina there had to be more. Vast interest in Venice led her to focus not only on its past, but on its vibrant present, a thrilling aspect of this city of cities too often overlooked. Thus she offers to visitors a Venetian experience far beyond the usual.



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