Venice, dream and (architectural) phenomenon, still.

Abstract

The city of Venice is a mythical setting, where experience is the focus of literary, artistic and architectural production about the city. Light plays a crucial role in the understanding and representation of its spaces, inspiring artists —such as Turner or Monet— who tried to capture its essence, representing not only a physical reality, but also emotional and psychological states. A myriad of scenarios that are repeated in most of the representations of the city and that make us think about how the same event can be materialised an infinite number of times even under different modalities, creating a kind of collective dream through an exclusively sensorial perception of Venice. Breaking out of this dream implies breaking an important cultural barrier and challenging the traditional notion of the subject as a mere passive observer. A step to take in order to rethink the city and move away from a reality that is already exhausted and inundated by clichés and sentimentality. This article will explore the possibility of extending the validity of Heideggerian phenomenology to architectural thought precisely because of the capacity of this Venetian city to provide symptoms of contemporaneity even in its long decadence.