«Here, here we stop! – A propitious wish / is this cross, – is this altar. / Everyone around – raise a hovel / between this enchantment – of sky and sea”. Like the phoenix that rises and resurrects from its ashes, and as in Giuseppe Verdi’s Attila, Venice is a large field in which minds are trained to think and rethink the future of a city born fortunately from water and water continuously touched, cultivated, threatened. Among the voices that are being raised in recent weeks about the future of the city there is that of Giovanni Montanaro, Venetian, lawyer and writer. His latest book, Come una siren, is published by Feltrinelli: «There is a lot of thought about Venice – Montanaro confirms – the Venetians think about themselves and generate many thoughts about the city, but they work a little harder to find real alternatives. We can’t wait for someone else to give us perspective. Whoever lives here must be able to make his voice heard.”
Montanaro, what are we talking about when we ask ourselves about the future of Venice?
«In my opinion we need to raise the theme of narration about Venice. Until the 1930s and 1940s, Venice was a city totally immersed in contemporaneity. From a certain point of view he had a project, which was in fact the last project on Venice with Mestre. Venice still had a large number of inhabitants, it was the center of the Veneto and had within it three of the ten richest and most powerful men in Italy.”
And then?
«After the war the city changed and began to be perceived as a problem. In ’66 there was the Aqua granda and since then the city has no longer been able to think of a different project, except for a few attempts at the end of the ’90s. Let’s think for example of Marghera, which translates into a excruciating contradiction, with thousands of people living thanks to its factories, which however also brought pollution and death. At the same time, Veneto has also changed, becoming one of the regions with the most weight in the country, but without having a real centre. This leads to not having areas of real conflict in our territory, of course, but also to making it a peripheral region. There is no doubt that compared to thirty years ago, Venice and the Veneto matter less. And compared to ten years ago, Venice and Mestre are certainly worse off. Mestre for the spread of drugs and dealers, Venice for tourists.”
So what could be the future of Venice?
«I continue to think that the future is linked not only to what the city itself is, but also to everything around it. What do Venice and Mestre need? There is also depopulation in Mestre. So first of all Mestre and Venice need to attract people and jobs. But in which directions? Art is bringing something more qualified than mass tourism to the city, but perhaps we need to be able to look beyond, even to the mainland, for example looking at what is happening in Padua or Treviso.”
The doorbell is the home issue.
«It is a shame that a regulation for tourist rentals has not yet been made. The possibility of rethinking public construction is a theme that cuts across all cities, from Barcelona to Lisbon, and Venice often anticipates phenomena that then promptly occur in other cities. Furthermore, here there is the logistical question: due to the fabric that Veneto has, the car is unfortunately necessary. So why aren’t we thinking about building new car parks?”
The cliché is that Venice is uncomfortable. What could attract and convince the productive world to move?
«Lagoon life, that’s the plus that Venice gives, which is a gigantic luxury. But public and private mobility must be rethought.”
What do you think of the access fee?
«It seems to me to be an abominable measure in concept and it also seems to me – given the many exemptions – to be of limited effectiveness. Once adopted, however, the destination of the proceeds is decisive. In Venice there is no lack of money, there is a lack of perspective.”
What do you think the prospect might be?
«If this area – which is not just Venice but the Veneto – needs a city that has weight, this can only be Venice. Then put your mind back on Marghera, put your mind back in the twentieth-century project of development areas. La Marittima is potentially an “explosive” place, as long as it doesn’t end up like Vega, where it took them 25 years to build those infrastructures and then people are afraid to go out in the evening. The world is changing: there is a large settlement of immaterial work, but you must be able to have a place that can be reached from the Veneto, and that is the Marittima, while I believe less in the Arsenale and in more peripheral areas. It then makes more sense to think of a more protected part of Venice and a part more immersed in modernity.”
Who can decide this?
«Venice probably has a future if it becomes a political priority».
The relationship with UNESCO is complex.
«Venice remains a city that has international visibility, with infinite potential, but as long as we tell ourselves that it is so complex, it is difficult for people to come and live there. Perhaps we too should make the effort to change the language for Venice. If the watchword up to now has been safeguard, I think it’s time to think about other words: development, future. With the awareness that Venice is enormously bigger than us, it will never be overwhelmed. Here the quality of life is potentially excellent, but it must be made clear. It is true that to live there you have to make a form of choice, but it is a choice that repays you a hundredfold and allows you to live within nature, to maintain human relationships, in a city that is democratic par excellence, just go to vaporetto. Perhaps the time has come to perceive it and communicate it not just as a problem. Contrary to the logic of the turnstile, of the ticket which makes us appear like a city that is afraid of those who arrive. Venice and its metropolitan area have the possibility of being a capital, but we can only rebalance it if we have more inhabitants.”
And tourism?
«Tourist rentals can be limited more with incentives than with limits. But if the rental laws are stuck in ’78 and the fair rent, if you can’t set up an office in a condominium but can make tourist rentals, there is a problem. Of course, it is also up to the Venetians to decide whether to rent or not.”
Do you see any sprouts?
«Certainly the interest in the islands is very important; then contemporary art, which has brought significant investments to the city, even if some talk about colonization. And bottom-up projects, such as Serendipity Giudecca or other accelerators, all created with the aim of permanently repopulating the city, also thanks to home working. There are also positive ferments in Mestre, starting from Via Piave.”
How has the city changed after Covid?
«It is the first place where the Venetians felt they could come after the lockdown and they reclaimed it. But Venice makes sense if when you have a child and you live, say, in Treviso, you can take him to Venice almost as a form of pilgrimage: it is a place that must belong to everyone. If there were a new Special Law, but above all 30 thousand more residents, services and shops would be different and there would be no need to place a limit on tourism.”
