Venezia, Venezia, Scarpa, Scarpa (water, water)

This weekend my friend Lois and I went to Venice. Of course it was beautiful and I ended up finally taking a bunch of photos along with sketches. It was a nice break from Rome in terms of the architecture of the city. From the little bit that I picked up here and there, Venice really has no Roman Remains. It was mostly built up during Byzantine times and is affected greatly by Byzantine architecture. It was attempted at some point long ago to make Venice the new capital of the empire and thus much was looted from Constantinople and taken to Venice. The Moroccan pointed arch is very common in what you could call a Venetial Vernacular style and San Marco was filled with gold mosaics and had a feeling of solidity and massiveness that is not as apparent with flowery Baroque churches. Like every structure in Venice, San Marco had angled walls and puddles built up around the church hinting at the fact that it is sinking. Every tower we saw around the city was somewhat crooked. Classicism came later to Venice and it was almost commical to see some of the strict classical orders on buildings skewed and somewhat diagonal because of the non-uniform settling of the buildings. The whole city reminded me of the Titanic in some way and not really because both have and element of sinking involved (that's just a coincidence), but of the impending sense of disaster which is turned into a humorous spectacle. One of the nights we were there, Piazza San Marco flooded completely. We went out in rain boots and stomped around. People came out to see it as if it was a circus, but yet the very ground they were on was flooded and sinking. It reminded me of how even when the ship was close to completely under, the musicians played on and people sat to finish dinner.
It also seemed odd in the same sense, with the amount of beauty and ornateness put into the buildings whose very foundations were insecure. It would be like decorating a wedding cake with the highest quality, most expensive and best tasting frosting when the cake itself was a burned, boxed mix of Betty Crocker.

Sort of on the flip side, we saw a lot of work by the archtiect Carlo Scarpa.
see here for quick bio...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Scarpa
He worked mostly from the 1930s-1970s. One work he did for the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, was a remodeling of an older building where he let the tidal waters come into the gallery. This way, the water was not a nusance but became a point of interest and a way for the building interior to constantly change. We unfortunately saw it at low tide but got some good pictures. I still don't know too much about scarpa but he seemed to pay a huge amount of attention to detail and material connections. Even when he did larger spaces or structures he worked across every scale from the total building, to the widow frames and door hinges. He did a few remodelings and exhibition layouts for the museums in Venice including the Accademia and the Ducale Palace but these museums don't really give him any mention. We began to spot a handful of places as we walked around Venice that were pretty much hidden or unmarked such as storefronts, houses and even a bridge that couldn't have been anyone but scarpa. He isn't really on the tourist maps. I'd bet 95% of tourists who have been to Venice still have never heard of him.
It was great to see his work and combined with the Byzantine influenced Venetian style was a nice change of pace from Rome.