Venice CityVision Competition Announces Winners

Two winners, one special prize, and eleven honorable mentions have been announced in the Venice CityVision Competition. The international ideas competition routinely challenges architects, engineers, designers, students and creative individuals to develop visionary urban proposals with the intention of stimulating and supporting the contemporary city, in this case Venice.

The jury included Bjarke Ingels (BIG, Copenhagen/New York), Neri Oxman (Material Ecology, New York), Elena Manferdini (Atelier Manferdini, Los Angeles), Maria Ludovica Tramontin (Università di Cagliari, Cagliari), Bostjan Vuga (Sadar Vuga, Ljubljana). A special prize, the Farm Prize, was added during the competition, and Andrea Bartoli selected the winner.

The first prize was awarded to the proposal by Alberto Bottero, Simona Della Rocca, Valeria Bruni. Excerpt from the concept description:

"Venice is stolen from the lagoon. A constant struggle of men stealing fragments of ground from the water. Venetian buildings were built by establishing a precise relationship with the water: they faced the canals showing their splendor and wealth. The same Canal Grande was one of the most majestic scenographies of the power of all ages. The canals were the city streets: rowing boats and gondolas were the main means of transport, so that the main facades of their buildings faced the water, while the backs hid the pedestrian city.

Not merely places of transit, a substantial part of daily life was carried out on the canals and here social interactions and commercial transactions took place.

Today the Canal Grande is a bustle of ferry boats, private boats and a mass of passengers and tourists. All around there are gondolas in gold plastic, neon signs, lobster pizzas and cameras galore. 

The perception of the reality from water is accelerated and distorted. The meaning of travel on the water is reduced to the fastest way to move from one point to another of the city, saving tourists from going up and down all those bridges.

Then there are the gondolas. 

As everybody knows, Venetian people no longer get on gondolas. Nowadays that’s tourist stuff, a moment of folklore, or something that’s done to create that traditional romantic image to stick on your refrigerator after returning from a trip."

Click here to read the complete description.

Following are the three main prize winners.

See also the eleven special mentions in the image gallery below. Images via CityVision.