Venice: a library for the world

Abstract

The following article derives from a research born with the study initially aimed at the construction of the thesis “Venice: a library for the world. A cultural laboratory for the city“ coordinated by the Prof Sara Marini and the teaching contribution of Prof. Mauro Lena: the discussion took place in March 2017. I tried to unveil the pulsating and lively layer of the historical center of the city. I ventured into a research on the library as both a spatial device and a cardinal site of the city, deepening also the organizational and social aspects. I collaborated on the architecture of the books, dedicating a first moment of work to the study of useful texts to deepen the knowledge of the library and its management, a second moment of research was dedicated to the process of mapping, of photographic survey and of acquiring the knowledge of library assets and problems in the historical center of Venice, using the precious instrument of the interview enriching the methodologies investigation. The libraries in the historical center of the city are more than thirty-five and the total of their library heritage amounts to more than three million specimens and it is a quantification by default since in almost no case the process of quantification of the volumes present has been concluded. A third chapter of the work was dedicated to a comparison between the Venetian libraries and those present in the Manhattan Peninsula, (this part was followed in particular by Professor Jason Vigneri-Beane - Pratt Institute) through a period of deepening of the US case, in the month of November 2016 in which I also had the opportunity to relate my study to other research methods. Finally the last part of the work was dedicated to the development of a project proposal aimed at defining a new artefact in Venice, an ark capable of carrying out all the problems encountered in the libraries of the city and offering itself as one connecting point of a polycentric system. Venice proves to be a library for the world and is prepared to be a common operational horizon between institutions: the aim is to highlight the library as a example matrix for the creation of a network of synergies that constitute a program that involves more components and can create a positive return to the city. The research wants to map and analyze libraries and some precise places of culture in order to underline the important task of being a cultural propulsion for the city. The city has been studied and revealed as a large open laboratory that matches the scenario in which it is possible to plan individual interventions that facilitate the growth of creative thinking and the relationship with the documents of man’s memory.