Venice- The sinking city :(

For the weekend of October 15th to 16th, my Art History class took a trip to Venice. We visited many sights and even took a gondola ride across the canal. And yes, I literally mean across so it took about 5 minutes and cost us ,50 euros each. It did say on our itinerary that we would be taking a gondola ride across the canal, but most of us failed to look at the detail of the word “across” so there were a couple of not so happy campers as they realized that was all we were getting. Luckily, I was in the second group to go so my classmates and I got to see that we were indeed only going across the canal. So having that in mind we made the most of it and acted like it was the best gondola ride of our lives, even if it was just for 5 minutes!

Since Venice was a trip for my Art History class we visited specific places for my class and learned quite a few things. We were told our midterm would be on this trip so I was taking lots of notes and pictures. I won’t bore you with every single picture I took but I’ll highlight each place that we went to.



The first place we visited was Cà d’ Oro (house of gold). On the exterior and from the view on the canal, Cà d’ Oro is one of the most beautiful houses in Venice with its intricate Byzantine influences in its windows and on its façade. There was a nice little balcony that we all got to look out over and I got a nice little picture there.

After visiting Cà d’ Oro we walked to our hotel, dropped off our baggage, then headed to Campo Sta Maria Formosa for a picnic lunch. Needless to say this was no picnic lunch. It was simply a few loaves of bread, some cheese, and sliced ham (extremely raw I might add). We didn’t even get a nice little cup of wine for our picnic and we’re in Italy for goodness sakes! :)



After our “picnic” lunch we ran through the Basilica of San Marco. Yes, we seriously did run through it. Maybe not at as fast of a pace as you’re thinking but we definitely power-walked through this beautiful church and I was very upset. Our professor had his mind set on seeing this Biennale exhibit (that I will talk more about) and I was so upset we didn’t spend more time in such a beautiful church as San Marco. I mean, San Marco is pretty much the poster child of Venice, besides the gondolas and masks.

After our race through San Marco we did get a nice picture of our entire freshman group. We’re actually using this picture in the school newspaper. :)

Following San Marco, we quickly made our way over to the Arsenal to see La Biennale di Venezia, an exhibit that is done every two years in Venice and rotates every other time between art and architecture. Much to my professor’s pleasure (he’s an architecture major) it was architecture this year, but nonetheless I really enjoyed exploring and taking pictures of all the little teeny tiny models because I already am obsessed with “miniature” things! :)



The Biennale expanded over two different venues: the Arsenal and the Gardens. At the Arsenal, a few pieces that really stuck out to me were “Cloudscape” and “The Sound Cave”. “Cloudscape” was done by Transsolar & Tetsuo Kondo Architects and this is what one write-up about the piece said, "Transsolar and Tetsuo Kondo Architects (Germany) create Cloudscape, a place to experience a real cloud from below, within and above floating in the centre of the Arsenale. The path winds through the cloud. The structure consists of a 4.3 meter high ramp that allows visitirs to sit above the cloud. Simply, the structure leans on the existing Arsenale columns. The cloud is based on the physical phenomenon of saturated air, condensation droplets floating in the space and condensation seeds. The atmospheres above and below the cloud have different qualities of light , temperature and humidity." - domus.it This was so much fun to explore through and “be on top of the clouds”. “The Sound Cave” was done by Toyo Ito & Associates and was done as a model for the Taichung Metropolitan Opera House Competition. I really liked this piece because of what the architect behind it had to say about its unique shape and structure: “Architecture has to follow the diversity of society, and has to reflect that a simple square or cube can’t contain that diversity.”

The Gardens part of the exhibit we visited last on Friday so we were quite exhausted at this point and getting a little bit goofy. After looking at so much “modern art” or really architecture, we decided to “make art” of our own and we started posing in silly positions making silly faces and saying we were “making art”.

Nonetheless there were still quite a few pieces that did stick out to me that I really loved. When we first walked into the Gardens there was this great big “pile” of wooden chairs. I forgot to write down the name of the piece and the artist behind it but I really enjoyed it because it was something that I would love to have back at home- a bunch of chairs all staggering upwards sitting beneath a tree. It would be a nice little hangout to visit with friends and/or do homework and read a book. :)

(To be continued.... It's nearing 11pm here -on November 1st, 2010- and I'm exhausted after an eventful Fall Break in Rome so I'm going to start to fall asleep now...)