Streets full of water

On arrival in Venice a 19th century traveller Robert Benchley cabled home: "Streets full of water; please advise". A common retort in his day, upon the realisation that canals uniquely and wholeheartedly govern the shape and pattern of the city. In past centuries these canals were the main thoroughfares, affording a view of the city's more dazzling face. Before of course the construction of "salizzade" (paved streets), and later the practice of filling in canals (which landlocked many buildings).

Streets intersecting by means of bridges delineated the urban structure like a filigree, forming a natural division between water and foot transportation. A perfected duality of two environments, in which the boat became the crucial link

Venetian "palazzi", in comparison to the fortified nature of contemporary palaces of other Italian cities, had an openness that reflected a civic calm. The glory of the Republic was reflected in the opulent facades that lined the city's main artery, the Grand Canal.

The basic design of the "palazzi" had developed by the 13th century, incorporating both the residential and commercial functions. Each one was accessed from the canal via a portico for the unloading of goods and passengers. Sometimes entry was through a covered space, a "cavana", so that dignitaries could enter and leave while remaining screened from the public eye; "donning cloak and mask".

[As pictured below: A Portico and Cavana at the Querini Stampalia].

With offices on mezzanine floors, and residential levels above, the city lived above the ground floor, leaving the ground plane relatively free for the roam of boat and foot alike. And in this regard, Venetian domestic architecture was not based solely on decorative style but clear and coherent functional design. The whole city was built for the boat, so that it has conditioned its growth.

[Pictured below right: An extract from Sebastiano Serlio's The Book of Architecture. (published 1611). Note the stern of a gondola in the left comer].

Today, with the demise of the role of the private boat, the public "traghetti" gondola ferries continue to portray the quintessence of Venice. Businessmen and the general public alike are herded in a democratic fashion across the canal. Despite a hierarchical class system, there was, and still is, little space or reason to exercise class segregation. These boat crossing points also serve as a reminder of the days when the Rialto was the only bridge across the Grand Canal and the gondola served an essential urban requirement.

"We were gliding up a street - a phantom street; the houses rising on both sides from the water and the black boat gliding on beneath their windows... so we advanced in this ghostly city, continuing to hold our course through narrow streets and lanes, all filled and flowing with water. Some of the corners where our way branched off were so acute and narrow, that it seemed impossible for the long slender boat to turn them; but the rowers, with a low melodious cry of warning, sent it skimming on, without a pause. Sometimes, the rowers of another black boat like our own, echoed the cry and slackening their speed (as I thought we did ours] would come flitting past us, like a dark shadow. Other boats, of the same sombre hue, were lying moored. I thought to painted pillars, near to dark mysterious doors that opened straight upon the water...."

Dickens. Charles: Pictures from Italy 1846 (described as if in a dream).