Thursday, May 26, 2022

Sunset Behind the Cemetery Island

29 May 2015, taken from a mascareta (flat bottomed Venetian row boat), as the secca (area of very shallow water) to the east of the island is not supposed to be traversed by motor boats (though it frequently is when the tide is in); when the tide is out it's a real challenge to keep your oar from hitting bottom.

 

Monday, May 23, 2022

A Quartet of Eyesores

There are some things I don't miss about Venice: here are 4 of them on a rio in Canareggio, 23 May 2015

Friday, May 20, 2022

Healthcare In A Historic Setting

Perhaps one gets a different sense of one's life when even the most contemporary of processes, such as accessing a national health care system, takes place amid large dramatic architectural elements of the past. (taken 27 May 2014)

Sunday, May 8, 2022

A Grand Piano Nobile Both More and Less Than It Appears


These images from 2015 are of a piano nobile whose grand appearance was produced by an ingenious combination of authentic historical elements (such as the stucco figures) and clever, skillfully-done simulations, which upon closer inspection, readily revealed--in fact, reveled in--the modest contemporary materials of which they were constructed. 

In foregrounding their stagecraft the creators of the space remained true to John Ruskin's dictum that missing historical elements should not be replaced by modern simulations, whose aim is to fool the unsuspecting into thinking everything they see is the real, historical thing itself--as is the case of the extensively reconstructed facade of the Basilica of San Marco, for example, and in most other famous sites of Venice as well. But in this case they did so with a sense of whimsy (not really discernible in these photos) that Ruskin would never have imagined.