Metamorphoses of Venice. The methodological approach by Giuseppe Samonà and Gianugo Polesello to urban design on the fringe of the lagoon city

The idea of fringe in the city of Venice is a singular concept as unique as the morphology of the lagoon city itself. Unlike other cities on the mainland, Venice does not have precise borders; it evolves and grows on the water through the addition of islands, a process which could, potentially, make Venice a city with infinite extension. The boundaries are primarily represented by the challenges between the artificial and the natural, challenges on which Venice has been founded for many centuries. Moreover, they are always provisional borders which dissolve progressively into the sea. In Progetti Veneziani (1) Polesello writes about a non-antithesis between terminability/interminability and the indefinite fringe which makes a metamorphic shift from urban edge to urban interior, always tending towards the heart of the city. In this sense, although Venice is radially dispersed in lagoon waters (think of the historical map by Benedetto Bordone, 1536) it remains an absolute centripetal reference to which everything converges. Giuseppe Samonà in 1974, prompted by Ludovico Quaroni for the publication of the series “Città e Architetture in Italia”, began “Libro su Venezia” with Egle R. Trincanato in which his studies of the lagoon city became a landmark for all future scholars of Venice. Designing within these boundaries is a complex and delicate matter, with different interpretations of the borders being given over the years, and these have resulted in the adoption of different design methods.