Venetian Buildings Research Articles

The energy performance upgrade of the historical building of “Loggia”, in Heraklion Crete, Greece

This article presents the process of the energy performance upgrade for the historical, Venetian building of “Loggia”, in Heraklion Crete, Greece. The building is currently used as Town Hall of the Municipality of Heraklion. The original Venetian building was constructed and renovated between the 13th century and 1628 during the Venetian occupation of Crete (1205-1669). Through the centuries, the building was gradually and partially destroyed, resulting to its total destruction in the Second World War. The construction of the existing building as a faithful copy of the original started in the ’60s and was completed in the late ’70s. Due to the special protection and conservative regime applied for the “Loggia” building, although, practically, a new one, the possible energy performance upgrade interventions were remarkably restricted. Any alteration of the building’s outer views is strictly prohibited. Eventually, the proposed measures were the installation of new openings, faithful copies of the existing ones, the installation of a new air-to-water heat pump with a hydraulic distribution network and hydronic terminal units for indoor space conditioning, installation of new luminaires and LED lamps and floodlights and a photovoltaic plant on the building’s roof. The building was upgraded to a zero-energy consumption facility.

HISTORICAL DOCUMENTATION AND DIGITAL SURVEY FOR THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PORT LANDSCAPE

Abstract. The paper proposes a survey of the port of Fiskardo, a village located north of the island of Kefalonia, the largest of the Ionian Islands, in Greece. Called the “Venice of the South” as the coloured elevations of the houses, the subject of the research, are similar to Venetian buildings, Fiskardo owes its name to Roberto d'Altavilla who founded a Frankish colony in this bay.The study, starting with archival iconographic research, was carried out with the support of the photogrammetric technique supported by a four-helix drone allowed the documentation of the cultural heritage. This activity is configured as a search for identity characteristics through actions of knowledge of the places and geometries of the port through the use of UAV technologies.

Capillary rising damp in Venetian context: state of the art and numerical simulation

The fragility of Venice and its buildings are linked to the floods, observed since ancient times and emphasized in recent years: the periodic sea level rise, accompanied by rising damp, are the main causes of the alteration. In particular, the rising damp causes a series of complex diseases in the historic buildings, such as physical decay, chemical or biological, with loss of aesthetic and economic value. In addition, greater heat dispersion and reduced thermal comfort can also occur in interior spaces, with consequent risks for human health. This is a sign of “Sick Building Syndrome”. It is very important to develop models for assessing the vulnerability of assets and to manage sustainable plans related to maintenance processes and activities, satisfying the requirements of effectiveness and compatibility. Basing on numerical models performed with the WUFI 2D software, the paper analyses the different behavior of rising damp in relation to materials or masonry structures. In particular, the construction techniques and typical materials used in Venetian buildings were investigated, such as clay brick walls, lime plaster, Marmorino and Cocciopesto, adopted mainly to limit the capillary rise also caused by the phenomenon of “acqua alta”.

Climate change and indoor temperature variation in Venetian buildings: the role of density and urban form

Although the influence of urban form on microclimate and building thermal processes has been acknowledged, few studies have addressed the influence of overheating mechanisms on heterogeneous urban fabrics for existing historical cities. This study investigates the impact of changing urban climate on indoor temperatures by focusing on three Venice morphological patterns. Through microclimate modelling techniques, outdoor and indoor temperatures are simulated in 2020 and 2050 scenarios. Results show that the compactness of the urban fabric contributes to reducing indoor building temperatures. The analysis suggests that the increased density of shadow areas can mitigate the outdoor temperature values and reduce direct radiation on façades. When comparing the two climate scenarios 2020 and 2050, average indoor temperatures increase in the latter. However, the analysis highlights that the absence of insulation and the relatively high thermal mass of typical Venetian envelopes plays a crucial role in the building thermal processes preserving indoor comfort in a warmer climate future.

Silence and Voices in James’s Venice

Henry James’s descriptions, rich in visual details, often seem ‘muted’ from the point of view of sound. However, one particular sound seems to interest him more and more through the years: voices. In his works on Venice, voices seem to acquire a special value against the silence of the city, i.e. the absence of mechanical noises. Voices belong to people, but also to Venetian buildings, forecasting the use of voices regularly attributed to buildings in The American Scene. In Venice, gondoliers’ voices have a special relevance: in spite of their “contempt for consonants and other disagreeables” James does not seem to condemn them, on the contrary he appreciates them. An odd position for a writer who criticized harshly the language of American women and of ethnic groups in America. The reason may be ascribed to the fact that Italian is not the beloved language of Shakespeare and of American democracy, but also to the dreamlike quality of the city, or to the writer’s seeing Venice as a woman with whom he falls in love.

3D survey techniques for the conservation and the enhancement of a Venetian historical architecture

In recent years, thanks to a rapid and continuous technological development, the metric survey has had a significant increase in the digitization and enhancement of Cultural Heritage; in this research work, we will describe the methodology used to survey the ceiling of the Sala Capitolare of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice. On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Tintoretto, the painter of the pictorial cycle on site, the Scuola Grande decided to increase the information regarding this historical architecture, carrying out an in-depth analysis of the ceiling structure. The complexity of this Venetian building, its considerable dimension, the richness of decorations and the particular lighting conditions have required the integration of different methodologies: the laser scanning survey and the photogrammetric acquisition, together with the topographic network, allowed to obtain an adequate metric result for the study of the structure in its entirety. Furthermore, we also decided to test the image acquisition with a spherical camera for the documentation and the enhancement of the analysed historical architecture. The geometrical complexity of the Scuola caused various problems during the survey campaign, resulting in some unconventional choices in the work phases: the research presented here analyses the difficulties encountered and it illustrates the solutions chosen in order to solve them and to study the ceiling of the Sala Capitolare.

Venetian Buildings Are “of” and Not “on” the Lagoon

Venetian Buildings Are “of” and Not “on” the Lagoon

Partition walls in Venetian traditional buildings. Analysis instruments and solutions for their preservation and improvement of performances

ABSTRACTPreserving cultural heritage doesn’t simply imply handing down the image of a building as a whole, it also means safeguarding its material nature through knowing its construction-related features. The need to make buildings meet present-day requirements as regards acoustic and thermal performances must come to terms with the demand of preserving what has been built, avoiding marring its features. This is particularly felt in Italy, since most of the buildings in historical towns were built before the nineteen century. The object of the research is studying plastered wooden-structure partition walls to be found in brick-work Venetian buildings with a view of their refurbishment and conservation. Such walls, consisting in boards and wooden strips (scorzoni and cantinelle) play an important functional and construction-related role inside Venetian buildings. The resort to other materials unconnected with Venetian building tradition has often led to their being substituted with walls built according to more up-to-date techniques which has caused the loss of historical identity as well as quite different thermal-acoustic, rigidity and weight performances. The paper presents the first results of the construction-related analysis of the existing walls and some guidelines aiming to improve their performances, at the same time making their preservation viable.

Precise photorealistic visualization for restoration of historic buildings based on tacheometry data

This paper puts forward a 3D reconstruction methodology applied to the restoration of historic buildings taking advantage of the speed, range and accuracy of a total geodetic station. The measurements representing geo-referenced points produced an interactive and photorealistic geometric mesh of a monument named ‘Neoria.’ ‘Neoria’ is a Venetian building located by the old harbor at Chania, Crete, Greece. The integration of tacheometry acquisition and computer graphics puts forward a novel integrated software framework for the accurate 3D reconstruction of a historical building. The main technical challenge of this work was the production of a precise 3D mesh based on a sufficient number of tacheometry measurements acquired fast and at low cost, employing a combination of surface reconstruction and processing methods. A fully interactive application based on game engine technologies was developed. The user can visualize and walk through the monument and the area around it as well as photorealistically view it at different times of day and night. Advanced interactive functionalities are offered to the user in relation to identifying restoration areas and visualizing the outcome of such works. The user could visualize the coordinates of the points measured, calculate distances and navigate through the complete 3D mesh of the monument. The geographical data are stored in a database connected with the application. Features referencing and associating the database with the monument are developed. The goal was to utilize a small number of acquired data points and present a fully interactive visualization of a geo-referenced 3D model.

Project management for digital projects with collaborators beyond the library

ABSTRACTLibrarians are increasingly embracing project management to guide their work outside of routine library operations. Some humanities scholars, too, especially within the digital humanities community, are bringing project management techniques to bear on scholarly digital projects. We argue that librarians and their diverse collaborators can apply project management practices to a broad range of research, teaching, and learning projects with collaborators beyond the library. Two case studies illustrate this argument, one from each author's experience: creating a community biodiversity wiki for West-Central Florida and redesigning an interdisciplinary first-year seminar around creating 3-D models of historic Venetian buildings.

Specific structural mechanics that underpinned the construction of Venice and dictated Venetian architecture

Abstract This paper demonstrates that Venetian architecture was the result of specifically conceived structural mechanics, novel failure analysis, and specially devised construction techniques, which allowed structural design to take full advantage of materials. Venice witnessed the creation of ‘structural art’ that drastically reduced the incidences of failure caused by extremely soft soils and aggressive environment, which extended the operating horizons of masonry and timber structural materials to the extent that very bold structures were obtained also before the pre-eminent materials of modern structures. A further aim of this paper is to promote a greater knowledge and understanding of the attributes and capabilities of traditional engineering materials in the context of structural design, thereby contributing to the prevention of failures of cultural buildings in the future. While normal masonry constructions can be governed by Euclidean geometry, Venetian buildings are far more complex and elusive in form. Venice and its architecture can be interpreted and comprehended only in the remit of structural engineering, which played a central role in enabling the construction of the city. The fundamental determinants of Venetian building morphology — the underlying logic of form in architecture — entailed a tectonic form midway between the masonry construction and the skeletal structure.

Study of the deterioration products, gilding, and polychromy of the stones of the Scuola Grande Di San Marco's façade in Venice

The Scuola Grande di San Marco is one of the most outstanding Renaissance buildings in Venice. Destroyed by fire in 1485, the Scuola was reconstructed between 1487 and 1495 by Pietro Lombardi (and sons), together with Giovanni Buora and Mauro Codussi. The façade is considered one of the finest and most original exteriors of Venetian buildings and in particular features refined sculptural and painted decorations and a remarkable pictorial effect created by the extensive use of polychrome marbles and the false perspective view between the pilasters of the lower order. Most of the stone materials (Istrian and Verona red limestones, nero di Roveré, pavonazzetto toscano, Carrara marble and various reused antique marbles) present evident decay phenomena such as scaling, exfoliation, powdering, fissuring, salt efflorescence, black crusts, and artificial patinas of various kinds. The present study reports the results of petrographic and chemical laboratory analyses carried out in preparation for the conservation treatment of the building, in order to characterize the main micro- and macro-morphologies of decay and to identify the causes and mechanisms of deterioration as well as the nature and application technique of the polychromy, gilding, and patinas present on parts of the monumental Renaissance façade.

“An Exile from the Sea with the Desert in His Mouth”: A Conversation with Iossif Ventura

22 WLT JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2016 photo : jean marie muggianu ( flickr . com / jmmuggianu ) B orn in Chania, Crete, in 1938, Iossif Ventura is a prominent Greek-Jewish poet and translator , a member of the Hellenic Authors’ Society, and the director of the electronic poetry magazine Poeticanet (www.poeticanet.com). His first volume of poetry, Υγρός κύκλος (Liquid circle), appeared in 1997 and his most recent volume , Το Παιχνίδι (The game), in 2015. Ventura is best known, however, for his two volumes of poetry about his experience and that of his fellow Cretan Jews during World War II. Ταναΐς (Tanaïs), which appeared in 2001, is named after the German ship carrying nine hundred prisoners—including the nearly three hundred Jews who comprised almost the entire Jewish population of the island—when it was sunk just offshore on June 9, 1944. Ventura revisited this theme again in Κυκλώνιο (Cyclone) of 2008, the title of which also references the Zyklon B gas the Nazis used on their victims in the extermination camps. The two volumes together were published in English translation in 2015 by Red Heifer Press under the title TANAIS: Kyklonio & Tanaïs. Two Poem Cycles Commemorating the Holocaust of the Jewish Community of Crete. Ventura currently resides in Athens. An Exile from the Sea with the Desert in His Mouth” A Conversation with Iossif Ventura by Adam J. Goldwyn Q&A Adam Goldwyn Iossif Ventura “ WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 23 Adam Goldwyn: Why did you decide in 2001 (when Tanaïs was first published) to tell the story of the Jews of Crete? And why did you revisit this theme in 2008? Iossif Ventura: For many years growing up in Athens, I tried to put barriers around my war memories and my experience as a hidden child to escape the feelings of depression and sadness they generated in me. When I started publishing my poems and when my second book was favorably received by critics, a friend of mine suggested I write a poem for the Jews of Crete. In reality what he proposed was to dig deeply within myself and retrieve all the well-hidden trauma that was engraved on my unconscious. I went to Chania and visited the house where I was born; I walked the streets of the old neighborhood near the Venetian port, which today is full of bars and restaurants , deprived of its Jewish population. I retrieved old photos, documents, and other things from my family. It was a very painful procedure, but I felt that I had a duty to the lost Jewish children. I felt that I had to talk for them, to tell their story, which is not well known even among other Jewish communities in Greece. Very few knew that the Germans forced all the Cretan Jews into the hold of a requisitioned commercial steamer named Tanaïs. Very few Greeks knew that this ship was torpedoed and sank along with its human cargo not far from the coast of the Greek island of Santorini . Very few knew that the loss of thοse people meant the end of old Jewish culture, which had endured for over two millennia and had given birth to great thinkers, philosophers , cabbalists, and poets. It may seem metaphysical, but writing these poems, I sometimes felt that my pen was guided by those lost children, that I was sharing their terror, their cries, their last moments in the hold of the Tanaïs. Though the book was very well received, I still had the feeling that something was missing, that I had not finished my poem. There were missing verses, missing feelings that had to be expressed. This is why I wrote Kyklonio. AG: In Tanaïs, you begin by listing the names and ages of the eighty-eight children who died when the ship sank, and then refer to the synagogue as an “orphaned tree.” Why did you choose this metaphor? IV: Today I have the sad distinction of being the only living Jewish male born in Crete. All that remains of the Jewish community of Crete is a very old synagogue—a Venetian building—that bears the Hebrew name Etz Hayyim, which means “tree of life.” This “tree of life” is orphaned now, as all its...

Experimental investigation on bricks from historical Venetian buildings subjected to moisture and salt crystallization

The research presented in this paper investigated the mechanical behavior of bricks subjected to moisture and salt crystallization, and aimed at determining the mechanical degradation of bricks due to these environmental factors.Compression tests were performed on bricks removed from an historical Venetian building. The paper presents the experimental campaign and the results. The analysis of the experimental results provided novel information about the effects of moisture and salts on the compression strength of bricks. In particular, the experimental results demonstrate that moisture significantly reduces the compression strength of a brick; the greater the moisture content the lower compression strength, all other condition being equal, in particular salt concentration inside the brick. Moreover, the experimental results demonstrate that salts together with moisture significantly reduce brick compression strength, while salts without moisture increase brick compression strength. However, the crystallization of these salts can cause subflorescence and efflorescence inside the bricks, which eventually reduce the compression strength of the bricks and the masonry.The paper provides a discussion on the results that extends the outcomes to any masonry building subjected to brackish water or tides. The conclusions are devoted to safeguarding and conservation of masonry buildings that suffer from humidity and salt crystallization.

Relations between constructive peculiarities and structural behavior in Venice buildings

Here we are synthetically describing some constructive peculiarities of Venice civil buildings, analyzing the relation with the features of their structural decay and behavior in the long run. We suppose Venetian buildings, especially those parts which are conceived to suit the lagoon environment, to have undergone an evolution made of some adjustments, which were based on the observation of damages in previous buildings. That is we suppose ancient builders to rely on their awareness of the behavior of structures yet to come, and to be able to forecast it in part. This process brought some building contrivances to perfection, as exclusive and enduring features of Venice, overcoming changes in style and architectural layout, till they grew into essential elements of a whole and adaptable “device”. This writing is meant for a concise interpretation of this device, which is the result of some research works carried out at Venice IUAV University.

Hvarski Arsenal u kontekstu ostalih mletačkih arsenala

Historically speaking, the Arsenal at Hvar formed a part of the infrastructure set up by the Venetian Republic in order to secure the navigation between Venice and the eastern Mediterranean. Controlling the cities which had favourable ports along this route and which could provide protection and supplies to vessels was of key importance. The port of Hvar was the most important port among the Adriatic islands because its location was almost unavoidable when navigating this sea. It was spacious and had the necessary depth, and it was also protected from wind; until the mid-eighteenth century it served as the main port of the Venetian Adriatic fleet. The decision to build an arsenal was made in the late thirteenth century and the actual building must have been completed several decades later. More numerous pieces of information can be gathered only from the sixteenth century when a new building seems to have been constructed but remained without a roof for a long time. The Arsenal burnt down during the Turkish attack in 1571 and was renovated in 1611.The central arsenal of the Venetian Republic was built on an enormous site in Venice and consisted of tens of halls. Large numbers of vessels were constructed there during individual campaigns on the eves of wars. Apart from the Arsenal at Venice, other significantly large armouries included those located on Crete (Candia/Heraklion, Chania) which were technologically advanced and also consisted of several halls. These armouries also built galleys - the most important and the fastest of Venetian vessels. Galleys had the advantage of being easily transformed from merchant vessels to war ships and vice versa, and Venetian maritime success was based on the good organization of their routes. Other armouries carried out only modest ship-building activities and their main role was to provide supplies and service the vessels. The Arsenal at Hvar belonged to this group of minor supply armouries. A particular feature of the Arsenal at Hvar is its prominent position: it is situated well into the port area, as was customary, but, at the same time, it is also located on the main town square. For this reason, it has a certain ‘communal’ value which seems to have been confirmed by the fact that its façade was provided with a more monumental articulation than was usually necessary for Venetian arsenal buildings. It features string courses, and the decorated arch cornice as well as the lions of St Mark. Another unusual feature is the addition of the first floor which, during the final remodelling in the early seventeenth century, housed the local theatre. This created an idiosyncratic symbiosis between the military and the civic, public function which confirmed the communal significance of this building.

The caranto paleosol and its role in the early urbanization of Venice

AbstractAs rising sea level threatens Venice, there is a need to construct a historical framework for interpreting modern environmental changes. Environmental conditions that would later help support Venice's urbanization were established during the Late Glacial period when calcic soils began to develop in the Venetian alluvial paleoplain. A calcic paleosol, buried by Middle to Late Holocene marine transgressive deposits, represents a subsurface layer long known in the Venice area as “caranto.” Referenced in the ancient chronicles of architects and builders, the caranto exhibits relatively high compressive and shear strength, making it an important substrate for supporting building foundations, some dating back to the Gothic era (12th–15th centuries A.D.). Hence, the caranto paleosol documents local post‐glacial environmental changes while playing an important role in Venetian building construction and human settlement. Here we provide geochemical, sedimentological, paleoecological, and chronological analyses of the caranto paleosol and related deposits based on recent coring of the Venetian Lagoon. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Tessinarna i Venedig

<p>The Tessins in Venice</p><p>Foreign royalty and other travelers visiting Venice in the early eighteenth century encountered a flourishing of the arts. This vibrant artistic life could be transposed to new settings, as a number of Venetian painters worked for courts north of the Alps. When the statesman and <em>connoisseur</em> Carl Gustaf Tessin, Swedish Ambassador to Vienna, visited Venice in 1736, it was with the intention of hiring a decorative painter for the new royal palace in Stockholm. His first choice was Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, but his services proved to be too costly for the Swedes. Tessin did, however, buy art works, among them easel paintings by Tiepolo, Giuseppe Nogari and Francesco Zuccarelli. Anton Maria Zanetti helped Tessin survey the artistic landscape of his city and later became his agent. Carl Gustaf Tessin was not the first Tessin in Venice. His father and grandfather had also visited and documented Venetian architecture in drawings and notes. Marble floors in Venetian buildings left such a lasting impression on Nicodemus Tessin the Elder that he incorporated their patterns in his floor designs for Drottningholm Palace. In his travel notes from 1688, Nicodemus Tessin the Younger is critical of Venetian architecture, but writes enthusiastically about the city’s theatre and civic life.</p>

Kirmenjak- Pietra d'Istria : a preliminary investigation of its use in Venetian architectural heritage

Abstract Kirmenjak — white limestone from the quarries near the village of Kirmenjak in Istria (Croatia), in the past known as Pietra d'Istria — has been regularly used in the construction of the basal zone of Venetian buildings since the 14th century. Its characteristics — durability, extremely low water absorption and high compressive strength — made it an ideal material for the lowest parts of Venetian buildings in the zone between foundation (wooden piles) and brick walls. In this zone, exposed to tidal flooding and low-tide drying, materials deteriorate very quickly, but Kirmenjak has proved to be durable even in this aggressive saline environment. Moreover, this dense micritic or pelmicritic stylolitized limestone from the Upper Jurassic (Tithonian) was used as an efficient barrier to rising damp. Preliminary in situ investigation of how Kirmenjak blocks were laid shows that the prevalent stylolite orientation is horizontal in the basal parts of buildings, while in other structural elements this orientation varies. This inspired the hypothesis that the Venetian constructors took advantage of horizontally laid stylolite discontinuities (partially filled with clay) as a multilayer humidity barrier.

Cell death by the sea

The European Cell Death Organisation (ECDO), with the support of the EU-Marie Curie Actions, organized the 12th Euroconference on Apoptosis in Chania, Greece, from 17 to 20 September 2004. The meeting, which was held in the 'Arsenali' conference centre, a recently restored Venetian building situated in the picturesque old harbour of Chania, was attended by 310 participants from all continents. For the first time, the Euroconference was combined with a training course, aiming to familiarize young scientists and newcomers to the field with some of the basic concepts, methodologies, and tools used in the study of programmed cell death. Thus, the first training course on 'Concepts and Methods in Programmed Cell Death', to which most of the first day was dedicated, consisted of seven 1-h presentations focused on the mechanisms behind programmed cell death and the apoptotic responses (R Lockshin, G Salvesen, P Krammer, W Bursch), as well as the technological approaches that can be employed in their study (P Bernardi, E Golemis, P Silver). Details on the presentations can be found on the conference web-site, http://ecdo.maich.gr.