There is no other city in the world that is only accessible by foot or boat. Venice is an open-air museum. This is my second time staying in Venice for a few weeks. I came the last year as one of the first tourists and it was a dead silence. It was a time to reflect that the Venice that hosted millions of visitors can no longer do so. Venice needs to be preserved and looked after for future generations.
This is the first weekend where Venice is open for tourists. It certainly was the most people I have seen in a year on a mass scale. It is very clear that no pandemic is going to get in the way of allowing mass visitors to return to Venice. It needs the tourists to survive.
What is authentic about Venice? What should you buy as a memorable souvenir? Why buy real Murano Glass? How can you see Venice from a rooftop perspective and notice the deterioration of the city? Thanks to the mass tourism of the past and clearly coming back into Venice.
All the images and articles about Venice are all photo’s taken by me. This is feet on the ground authentic journalism.
La Biennale
La Biennale Venezia was founded in 1895. It lasts for several months and the aim is to market the Art, Architecture, Cinema, Dance, Music and Theatre, historical archives. Global countries around the world are here to highlight the future trends of architecture and the saving of our planet. So if it’s anyone that can give Venice ideas on how to move forward in preserving this open-air museum. It would be these people who are the most famous architecture in the world. With our use of technology, wind energy and recycling of rubbish. Why can’t Venice lead the way regarding saving this unique city?
The Locals Don’t Want The Mass Tourists To Return
In speaking to the locals last year and now. They all agree that Venice was disgusting before the pandemic. It was horrible to see everyone sitting on historical stairs eating and leaving their rubbish to then end up in the canal. There are not enough bins in Venice to put my rubbish into. There are not enough key workers to keep the city clean night and day. Why is that? This city should be controlled on severe ecological preservation when it comes to rubbish bought in by tourism.
The city can only be accessed by foot, so the foot traffic and the pollution that we tourists bring in is above average. Venice was not made for millions to walk into.
At this rate, Venice will not survive another thousand years as it is just been treated like trash. The Italian government are not enforcing or listening to the locals who live here.
What is the new renaissance of Venice to be?
Stop The Mass Tourism
Let’s think local, and be local. Let’s respect ancient and vernacular cultures. Let’s listen to the youth. Will Venice survive for another thousand years in its current lifestyle of millions of tourists and ships sailing through Venice all in the name of business, not preservation?
Gondola travel is an essential experience one must do. Sailing through the canals is a beautiful way to listen and see the architecture of Venice and how it was built. But this form of transport is silent and ruins nothing about Venice.
Electrification Of Venice
All electricity is produced by renewables. Why is Venice not electrifying its boats as means of transporting the people? Why is Venice not controlling the number of tourists coming in? How can Venice create jobs, incomes and preserve Venice to be of a higher standard of living?
For Moltedo this represents “an environmental wound to a city which should be the symbol of all those safeguards which our government claims to be championing.”
After all, he said, the environment is meant to be the lynchpin of the EU’s post-pandemic Economic Recovery Plan. “Apart from anything else, letting cruise ships back into the lagoon is not a good look.”
According to ecologist and activist Jane da Mosto, director of We Are Here Venice, the government measures deal with the symptoms and not the cause. “There’s no solution as long as these ships are so huge and so damaging. They just don’t fit on the planet,” she said. At last week’s Salone Nautico boat show in Venice’s Arsenale, electrically powered craft generated a lot of interest, she pointed out. “If you’re really committed, you don’t build more terminals for environmentally damaging cruise lines. You invest in alternatives.”
I just experienced the Candela 100% electric boat here in Venice. A wonderful alternative to the massive cruise ship. They can make a tax boat for twelve people. The boat is worth around 300,000 euro.
Murano Glass
You can buy cheap Murano glass from China in Venice. How you can find that is by going into souvenir stores that sell Murano items for under five euro. They are products mass-produced. Replicated from China. I am amazed that it is allowed to happen here in Italy. You can buy wonderful individual items made out of Murano Glass. The creation is endless. The following examples are commissioned and worth over 20,000 euro.
If you are looking to upgrade your home interior design. This art piece will last many lifetimes. They are packed in a wooden box, insured and transported flat.
You can opt for some glass wear, worth a few hundred euro. All Murano glass made in Murano is authenticated with a certificate.
Murano Glass Necklace
You can also buy contemporary jewellery that is exclusively made. You can choose your colours! This is exclusive to one boutique in Venice. 
It was made this year and I am the first to own two pieces. I love them as they are original and can be worn with many accessories. it is an art piece that can be worn anytime, any weight and with anything. It is all about choosing the clothes you love. Turning fifty I want to wear niche fashion crotchet items and necklaces that can’t be found in fast fashion stores.
At the moment the famous La Biennale is happening in Venice. It is all about the latest building architecture designs in the world. For me the two go hand in hand, fashion and buildings.
I am wearing Caretti clogs, a Yves Saint Laurent vintage bag and my Murano glass necklace all made in Europe.
Rooftop Venice
Venice is equally wonderful to take in the architecture of a thousand years. The burnt orange roof bricks. The modern rooftop balcony trends.
Peering down into the canals and seeing the Gondola going past is a rare treat.
Trying to capture how people live in Venice and the endurance of restoration and upkeep in Venice is very expensive.
Walking Venice
To truly capture the art and creativity of Venice, it is all about walking. Soaking up the views and palazzo’s around Venice. They are not easy to access.
Gardens are rare in Venice to see one or have access to is like finding a needle in a haystack. As architects what are the designs to allow beautiful light-filled homes and workplaces. Places like Venice use no fossil fuels whatsoever. how could more gardens be placed within Venice?
Cafe Rooftop Bars
Not common in Venice and when you do find one. They are worth sitting and soaking up Venice from high viewing access.
To get furniture and any goods into Venice is hard work and must be transported by boats and cranes into their final destination
Living in Venice is all about time, space and existence.
Science is screaming at us, and yet we suffer from crises of human imagination. Venice is a place where history screams back at us.
Venice Pollution levels and extreme storms eating at its coastlines. Venice is visited by millions across the globe. Last year thanks to this pandemic the city had a rest. Venice can not handle chaos, the obscene volume of garbage, plastic, pollutants and toxic waste we as tourists throw at it.
What we design holistically, globally and responsibly is for the future generations and they deserve life and to see Venice survive.
I Am A Dreamer
You may say I am a dream. But I am not the only one. It’s now beyond time for architects, designers, innovators and artists to envision a politics and society which is not business as usual.
Let’s respect ancient and vernacular cultures. Let’s use natural materials that add warmth, life, texture and allow them to age, evolve and improve over time. Let’s design efficient, comfortable, healthy spaces that will last hundreds of years. Let’s not be fashionable.
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