At the 2002 Venice Biennale, there was an interesting art exhibit called Ashes and Snow that was held within the Arsenale in the old rope-making factory called the Corderie. It used photography, sound, film and curious art installations to vivify the spiritual intersection between humans and animals in the wild. The exhibit has just now come to New York City, hosted by the Husdon River Park, and I recommend it. Kids will like it too.
But cool as the exhibit was, I hate to say it, cooler still was penetrating a corner of the Arsenale itself. Once the Venetian Republic's most secret sanctum and core of its military might, the Arsenale is still a place that is largely off-limits to the public. At its peak, it's said that 16,000 men worked there, with walls that were 2 miles in circumference. Today, it still occupies an estimated 1/7th of the entire area of historic Venice. Yet few people -- Venetians or tourists -- really know the place.
I couldn't get shots of the interior of the Corderie, since they restricted photography during the show, but here are a couple photo links I dug up.
This one is from the Provincia di Venezia, and while it gives you the general idea, bear in mind that during the exhibit it looked vastly different: all the windows were darkened, and dramatic, hyper-theatrical lighting was installed. The Provincia's site says, in Italian, that there are 84 columns that span the building's 1000 foot length, supporting a ceiling over 60 feet high (though that seems exaggerated to me). Apparently, it was built starting in 1578 by architect Antonio Di Ponte, the same man who beat out Palladio for the design of the Rialto Bridge. Scroll down the page and look at the mask with the open mouth built into the wall. That's where the finished rope emerged to be used on the ships, like a giant dental floss dispenser.
Here's another look inside. This one shows an actual art exhibition in progress, and gives you sense of the possibilities of the place.
Below is a scan of a contact print of panoramic photo I made outside the exhibit (click on it for an enlargement). Below that is a shot of the exterior, with my then 2 year old daughter walking in the rain.
Unfortunately, getting a peak at the rest of the Arsenale is not so easy. The Italian Navy, perhaps fittingly, has a prime chunk of it right by the main entrance. You can sail through (but not stop) on a vaporetto to/from Fondamenta Nuove. Otherwise, you have to wait for exhibitions or the rare day when the gates are thrown open to the public. There are some private cantieri (boat workshops) there, too, I've read, as well as grand renovation and commercial project plans.
I certainly hope the Arsenale gets the reinvention it deserves. I think of the old train station in Paris that became the Musee D'Orsay. Or the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, formerly the Tsar's winter palace. Reexpression fights urban decay and architectural entropy while preserving heritage and making cities more vital and liveable.
And besides, the ghosts of all those thousands and thousands of ship builders and galley slaves deserve a little company from time to time, no?
The entrance to the Arsenale near the naval museum.
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