Event

Palladio Venice 2014 Program

For centuries students of architecture have visited Venice and the Veneto to study the work of the 16th century Renaissance Architect Andrea Palladio. This is so because of the inherent beauty of the built works and their corresponding landscapes and also because Palladio's work is a testimony to a political culture and humanist ideal which would resonate throughout the world and America. Jefferson's reliance on Palladio's conception of architecture is explained as much by the practical content
evident in Palladio's drawings and buildings, as it is by the ability of his work, individually and collectively, to project a cultural ideal. In Jefferson's case it would be the political program of a new republic, manifest in reassembled pediments and columns against the geography of a new world.
In winter time, the city of Venice and its region of influence, the Veneto, are most beautiful and evocative as the mist from the ocean moves across the "Lagoon" and the marshes of this extraordinary geography.
The architecture of Andrea Palladio, in the city and the territory, is impacted by this northern winter light, luminous and clear. This program proposes a visit to the city of Venice and to the work of Andrea Palladio. The artistic and cultural heritage of the city, present along its canals and squares, in museums and churches, expose a dazzling culture, which spans a thousand years. In Palladio's architecture this extraordinary legacy is manifest in the theory behind the works and the buildings
themselves. The program would include visits to the specific work of Palladio in Venice and Vicenza but also the cultural sphere which affected his work such as the painting schools of Venice and the frescoes of Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padova, and the masterpieces of Leon Battista Alberti, Andrea Mantegna and Giulio Romano in Mantova.