As if by Professor Ammerman’s bidding, the siren woke me up at 5:15 Monday morning to announce the coming acqua alta – more than 130 centimeters above mean sea level, an event occurring on average only once every two years. After slowly wading through the streets and on more than one occasion climbing on buildings to avoid inundating my rubber boots, I walked into Italian class twenty minutes late, along with many of the Istituto’s students. Professor Ammerman arrived later with a grin. Only now can we conceptualize acqua alta and fully understand the semester’s studies.
All of the semester’s work started coming to crescendo last week as we prepared to break for Thanksgiving. Each of our four classes played a roll in last Tuesday’s panel discussion with Ortalli and Donello, two friends of Professor Ammerman who are major players in the debate surrounding saving Venice. The discussion covered topics from the beginnings of Venice and its archeology through the art and architecture of the city and the current state of Italian and specifically Venetian affairs. And the whole discussion was in Italian.
Ortalli, born in Bologna, moved to Venice in the early 1970s and Donello is a native Venetian. Even Professor Ammerman, who has been all but adopted into the city after 25+ years of close interaction, is a stragneri by comparison. But all three are greatly involved in the efforts to stop the current situation wherein saving Venice has become a painfully drawn-out profiteering exploitation by a nationally organized conglomeration.
It all started in 1966 when a combination of natural factors aligned to inundate Venice, and launch the city to global attention. Yes, the city flooded higher than ever before. Yes, residents were out of power and utilities for more than a week. Yes, the profuse historic monuments of the city sustained great damage from the salt. But there were no deaths, no buildings in the historic center destroyed, no irreversible damage to the city. None except perhaps for the way it is now perceived – as a stylish pet project of non-profits and for-profit organizations. Venetians never asked to be saved.
Then again, few would complain about the early works done in the city: restoring artwork, restarting the INSULA program which cleans canals and repairs foundations, re-beautifying palace facades, etc. But an early study proposed that the city needed protection from future floods; enter circus. The Magistrato alle Acque, a position dating from the Republic that was adopted by Italy after the unification, created the Consorzio Venezia Nuova, a conglomerate of construction corporations, which was charged with the testing, reviewing and construction of the proposed project: a moveable gate to block tidal surges.
Anyone can see that putting one for-profit group in charge of all aspects of such a costly program does not likely point to positive results. Few have been surprised that the cost keeps rising and minimal physical evidence of work has been seen – only one gate has been built, a test done in the 1980s; and the foundation has been laid in the mouths of the lagoon. And despite constant assurances that results will materialize, no construction seems prepared in the near future.
With men like Ortalli, Donello and Professor Ammerman who have been fighting for Venice’s future from the beginning, as each day passes with more money wasted on the CVN and no positive results to show for it, it is understandable that they are far less optimistic. This is not to say that they have an alternative solution. They suggest looking at Venice’s past to help secure its future; that is to revert to the Venetian engineering tradition of open-minded trial and error.
A piu tardi!
Ciao.
Andy
Recent Comments