Architectural Posters of Venice

Venice: Architecture of a City on Water

These fourteen architectural posters examine Venice at different scales: from individual palaces and churches to the Piazza, Grand Canal, Arsenale and the panorama of the Bacino di San Marco. Together they reveal how sacred architecture, commerce, state ceremony and shipbuilding shaped the image of the lagoon city.

AP 511 and AP 507 · St Mark’s Basilica and Piazza

Construction of the present St Mark’s Basilica began in 1063 and the church was consecrated in 1094. Its cross-shaped plan and five domes follow Byzantine models, while mosaics, precious marbles and the later Gothic crown record centuries of transformation in the former Doge’s chapel. AP 511 explains the building through views, plan and details. AP 507 widens the focus to Piazza San Marco: basilica, campanile, Doge’s Palace, Procuratie and Piazzetta form not a single monument but the political, religious and ceremonial centre of the Republic.

AP 390 · Andrea Palladio, Chiesa del Redentore

Following the plague of 1575/76, the Venetian Senate vowed to build a church of the Redeemer on the Giudecca. Andrea Palladio designed the Redentore in 1576; construction began in 1577 and was completed after his death. On the façade, temple fronts of different scales overlap so that nave and side chapels read as a lucid unity. The luminous interior leads through the nave towards a centralised crossing. AP 390 presents dome, façade and building mass in a precise architectural drawing.

AP 103, AP 326, AP 318 and AP 325 · Churches, Scuole and Palazzi

Architettura Veneziana (AP 103) arranges public, religious and private buildings from 1100 to 1800 as a comparative collection of façades. AP 326 focuses on the Scuola Grande di San Marco, whose Renaissance façade was rebuilt after a fire from 1487 by Pietro Lombardo and later Mauro Codussi and Antonio Rizzo. The Ca’ d’Oro (AP 318), built from 1421 to 1440 for Marino Contarini, combines Gothic tracery with a façade that was originally vividly coloured and gilded. Ca’ Foscari (AP 325) was begun in 1453 as a prestigious residence for Doge Francesco Foscari at the broadest bend of the Grand Canal.

AP 350 and AP 416 · Santa Maria della Salute

Santa Maria della Salute grew from a vow made by the Doge and Senate during the plague of 1630/31. Baldassare Longhena designed the highly visible centralised church where the Grand Canal meets the Bacino di San Marco; work began in 1631 and the building was consecrated in 1687. An octagonal main space, ambulatory, ring of chapels and great dome create a powerful spatial sequence. AP 350 studies the building as an architectural elevation, while AP 416 places it in a view of about 1720 as a new anchor in the Venetian skyline.

AP 201, AP 348 and AP 349 · The Façades of the Grand Canal

The Grand Canal is both a transport route and Venice’s ceremonial main street. AP 201 unfolds its two banks as long continuous elevations, allowing churches, merchants’ houses and palaces to be compared. The narrower panoramas AP 348 and AP 349 concentrate on the San Polo and San Luca sections. Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque forms can be read side by side in these water façades; ground-floor portals recall that many buildings were originally approached from the canal.

AP 523, AP 541 and AP 008 · The Arsenale and Bacino di San Marco

The Arsenale was the Republic’s vast pre-industrial production centre: its shipyards, workshops and stores built and supplied the Venetian fleet with ships, ropes and equipment. AP 523 records the enormous complex in a detailed bird’s-eye view of 1798. AP 541 and its smaller edition AP 008 instead open onto the Bacino di San Marco. The panorama links the state façade of the Doge’s Palace and the entrance to the Grand Canal with San Giorgio Maggiore and the lagoon islands, presenting city and water as an indivisible whole.