Live and learn

In a former cotton mill in the southwest corner of Venice, a group of international students has gathered in a classroom for a special guest lecture called Managing Waters. Projected onto a white screen at the front of the room, a slide reads: “The protection of Venice and its lagoon against flooding.” Francesco Musco, a professor of urban planning and deputy dean of research at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV), is keeping an eye on things through the classroom door’s round windows.

Musco has just completed a research project on the efficacy of Venice’s flood barriers, the Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico (Mose), which began operating in the lagoon in 2020 to ward off tidal surges. Off the back of these studies, he has called on colleagues in various disciplines to come and talk to his students. “The master’s programme in urban planning and transition is about making our cities more resilient to climate change,” he says, while walking MONOCLE through the halls of the old industrial building (the Sedi Cotonificio was renovated into classrooms, studios and lecture halls by celebrated mid-century architect Gino Valle when the university expanded in the 1990s).

It’s an educational ambition that’s seeing IUAV, which was founded in 1926 as Italy’s second public architecture school after Rome’s Scuola Superiore di Architettura, emerge as an appealing place for architects from across the globe to continue their studies. The university introduced Italy’s first master’s degree in urban planning in 1970 and today it continues to be a hub of innovation, attracting students who are keen to learn in – and from – a city at the forefront of climate change, mass tourism and cultural conservation.

At the forefront of this concept of learning from the city is Valeria Tatano. As a professor of architectural technology at IUAV, she is keen to get her students out into the city as much as possible. “Studying at your desk and at the library is all very well but in Venice there is a lesson to be learnt at every street corner,” she says. The previous week, she took a class to the Procuratie Vecchie in St Mark’s Square, a residence for public prosecutors built in the 1500s and recently restored by architect David Chipperfield. A short walk from the building, a small barrier has been erected around the square’s basilica to protect the 1,000-year-old church from moderate floods (at present the square finds itself under water some 60 times a year). “I can explain a million times how or why something is done but when students are able to see, touch, take pictures – then they have many more questions,” she says.

Seeing such work first hand is critical for architecture students who are moving into a professional world where environmentally minded approaches are key to project briefs. Built on a marshland in the centre of the lagoon, Venice has always had to find a balance between the urban and natural worlds. And it is a balance that is only becoming more important: since 2020 the Mose barriers have been raised 50 times, with some scientists predicting that, despite their effectiveness, the city could be under water in less than a century. Add to this the increased pressure on architects to design buildings that are in tune with the environment and it’s understandable why living and studying in Venice, where a changing climate is so visible, is increasingly appealing. Back on campus, Musco says that this is a key quality of the city that is attracting urban-minded architectural students. “Venice’s peculiarities make it very representative of many coastal cities.”

But it’s not just environmental problems that are strengthening IUAV’s educational offering; it’s the fact that every aspect of delivering a building poses a challenge in the city, from access to supply chains to connectivity beyond its islands. Here, buildings are battling sinking foundations (Venice is constructed on timber piles pushed into the loose mud and clay of the lagoon), while electricity, water and gas pipelines need to cross bridges and be hidden beneath pavements. Such topics are currently being unpacked in one of IUAV’s international architecture master’s programmes, where students from countries as varied as Ecuador, the US and Russia are working in groups to design an exhibition space in Ca’ Zenobio degli Armeni, a baroque palazzo. One of the challenges that students are being pushed to consider is how, in order to build the structure, construction materials would be transported through the canals. “It might seem obvious but studying in Venice is incredibly valuable,” says Michel Carlana, who studied architecture at IUAV and now teaches here, while also running his Treviso-based architecture practice. Bruno Tello Fernández, an architecture master’s student from Seville agrees. “Venice is one of the few examples of this particular way of life,” he says, while working on his design for the exhibition space. “Studying here helps you see how people adapt to different types of architecture [and ways of building].”

Significantly, and important to IUAV’s plans, is the fact that the university brings urban planning and architecture together with courses in design, fashion and theatre. In the corridors of Sedi Cotonificio, as well as in the narrow streets that connect to the main university building in Sedi dei Tolentini (with an entrance designed by one of IUAV’s most celebrated former directors, Carlo Scarpa), the university’s 4,000-odd students can be seen carrying everything from rolls of sketches to architectural models and coat hangers. Tatano, who like most professors was also a student here, says that this holistic, design-oriented approach gives a richness to the university’s courses. “Being a small university means that we’re all constantly on top of each other,” she says. “But it means that someone designing a building is shoulder to shoulder with someone designing a skirt.”

In addition to learning from the city’s problems, IUAV is also seeking ways to solve them. High rents mean that most students can’t afford to live on the islands of Venice and must commute from the mainland but the ancient city is also in desperate need of newcomers: it has lost 120,000 residents since the early 1950s. Recognising that for the city to continue to be an educational tool it also needs to be a place where people want to live, the university is planning to grow in an attempt to help repopulate Venice’s main islands. A project called Venezia Città Campus has been established in collaboration with city hall and Venice’s other public university, Ca’ Foscari, which will expand teaching space and student accommodation to welcome an additional 60,000 students in the next 10 years.

“We need to show ourselves to the world not just as a mythical place to visit but also as a tangible possibility for residency and work,” said Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro at an event presenting the project in early 2023. “Venice anticipates the problems that affect the entire country and it’s important to find solutions, like we did with Mose.” By putting its students in front of such problems, and by presenting its own ways forward by contributing to projects such as Venezia Città Campus, IUAV will play a leading role in building the Venice of the future. Other cities around the world will be watching closely.