Venice's first skyscraper

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JohnAKeith

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In his 75-plus years in the fashion industry, the 90-year-old couturier Pierre Cardin has molded silhouettes, cinched pantsuits, and stretched and shortened hemlines. More recently he has sent his sights on shaping the Venice skyline. His proposed Palais Lumière—a dizzying 60-story pirouette of glass and steel—represents either economic salvation for a faded corner of Venice or a grandiose fetish worthy of Dubai, depending on whom you ask.

Last week, as the Times reports, several of Italy’s prominent architects and art historians petitioned President Giorgio Napolitano to stop the project, which would include hotels, 284 private residences, a shopping mall, hanging gardens, a panoramic restaurant, swimming ponds, and a helipad. The palazzo’s fate hangs in the balance: though local politicians back the development, Cardin and his architect, nephew Rodrigo Basilicati, still must win approval from the Italian Culture Ministry. If everything goes according to plan, construction could start early in 2013.
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More photos, complete article: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/12/will-venice-finally-get-its-first-skyscraper/4132/
 
If I'm understanding the location correctly, it is within the municipal boundary of modern Venice, BUT it is on the mainland, and not on the islands that most people visualize when they see the name "Venice".
 
Bringing the horror of ugly architecture and tower-in-the-park desolation to one of the oldest and prettiest cities in the world?

Brilliant.
 
At first I was horrified by this but it's located so far from the islands that make up historical Venice that it will barely be visible from them.

One piece I read made a really good point: historic Venice is much more endangered, aesthetically, by the massive, modern cruise ships that building laws can't prevent from being a near-constant presence at the ends of streets or looming over squares.
 
Historic Venice is first and foremost an urban museum with quite few actual residents, so it's almost laughable to think about it as a city with a developable future. (There's really not that much in Mestre either, and the Lido is only urban in a resort-like sense).
 
60,000 people live in historic Venice. I haven't been, but people who have have told me that their presence is quite pronounced, especially outside of the (apparently relatively small, if busy) touristed areas.

There are plans to make the mainland portion of the city back into a major seaport, which makes sense, given the geographic position which made Venice wealthy in the first place (great access to eastern ports for central Europe) is still an advantage.
 
I have trypophobia and this rendering is hard for me to look at haha
 
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