Along Venice’s Grand Canal, learn a little about the history of Western architecture

Venice is undoubtedly a fascinating city, renowned for its beautiful surroundings, architecture and art collection over the years.But it is not easy to tell the story of Venice, and you may even feel unable to tell it, because it is worth exploring so many places, like a maze, you will be surprised at every step.But the maze has to have an entrance. Let’s take the Grand Canal, the main thoroughfare of the city, as the entrance to explore this labyrinth.Canal, usually refers to the man-made large scale, can carry a certain degree of water transport waterway. According to the definition of Cihai, canals are man-made waterways that connect different rivers, water systems and oceans, connect important towns and mining areas, and develop water transportation, such as China’s Grand Canal, the Suez Canal connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, and the Panama Canal connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.

A fascinating city on the sea But these waterways of Venice, even though they are also called canals, have a very different shape and meaning. In the first place, it was not built for navigation, but for water (although boats can travel on the river, but that is not the purpose).

Venice, as we all know, is a maritime capital built on a lagoon. Therefore, it is very important to keep the flow of sea water. Once the sea water is stagnant, the debris in the sea water will precipitate and rot, posing a threat to local sanitation and residents’ health. Just as the old Chinese saying goes, “Running water is not rotten, and a door-hinge never gets worm-eaten”.

The owners of the buildings on both sides of the canal were once prominent local people, either rich or expensive. Not surprisingly, the facade of the building faces the canal, just as the facade of the land building faces the street (there is of course an entrance path to the outside on the back). And because of Venice’s limited land, homes and workplaces are often one.

Moreover, the canals here were not dug into the ground, but used and developed existing waterways. Because the primary purpose is not to make traffic easy, it does not matter whether the waterway is straight or not. This is usually built for navigable canal is flat, and Venice canal 娫 wan twists and turns.

From the foyer of the Golden Palace looking towards the canal.

Although the canals of Venice were not originally built for navigation, the Grand Canal has in fact become part of Venice’s main water transportation network. Privately operated water taxis and water buses form Venice’s public transport network (boats are the only means of transport in the world’s only car-free city), and many tourists take Gondola, which has become one of the city’s ICONS.

The Grand Canal is 3,800 meters long, 30 to 90 meters wide, and has an average depth of 5 meters. One end opens to the Venetian Lagoon, near Santa Lucia station, and the other is near Piazza SAN Marco. The canal runs through the heart of Venice in an inverted S-shape.

Gundora Gondola (Italian: Gondola) is an ornate black gondola, about 12 meters long and 1.7 meters wide, with a high crescent-shaped bow that allows easy exploration of the bridge’s height. This is Venice’s unique and most representative traditional rowing, rowed by a boatman standing in the stern. For centuries, Gondola was the main means of transportation in Venice. But Gondola is more expensive these days, with locals taking cheaper water buses to navigate the city’s main waterways and Venice’s other islands, and it has become more of a tourist than a means of transportation. There were two theories as to why Gundora was dark. Gundolas were originally designed in a variety of ways, with aristocrats often flaunting their wealth in elaborately carved, silk-damask decorated Gondolas. In order to curb this extravagance, the Venetian government issued a decree stipulating that all gondolas must be painted black and unifying their patterns.

Another theory is that during the Black Death in Europe in the mid-14th century, which killed a third of the population, the increasing number of bodies had to be transported by gondolas. Black was used as a symbol of mourning for the dead, and the government banned extravagance, so the custom is still used today.

The stakes on the Grand Canal are used to indicate the course, and the stakes are engraved with water depth markers.

Each gondola is steered by a boatman, who stands on the left side of the astern side, facing the bow, and pushes water through the right side of the boat with a single oar. An asymmetrical design, the hull leans slightly to the right when moored and navigated, which counterbalances the weight of the man standing on the left and the stroke of the OARS, allowing Gondola to go straight ahead and avoid turning in circles.

The bronze ornaments on the ship’s tip have six steel teeth on one side, representing the hat of the doge and the six boroughs of central Venice, and a steel tooth on the other side representing the crescent-shaped island of Giudecca, which faces St. Mark’s Square.

Every year on the first Sunday afternoon in September, the traditional Gondola boat race, known as the Regata Storica Boat Race, takes place on the Grand Canal. The race originated in 1315.

Buildings on both banks Along the Grand Canal, you can see more than 170 buildings of different periods and styles on both sides. Most of the buildings date from the 13th century to the 18th century, so the architectural styles of Byzantine architecture, Gothic architecture, Renaissance architecture, Baroque architecture and neoclassical architecture. We choose some representative ones to introduce one or two. The Golden Palace (Ca’d ‘Oro), considered one of the most beautiful palaces on the Grand Canal. Officially known as the Palazzo Santa Sofia, it is often referred to as the “Golden Palace” because of the gold plating that once adorned the exterior walls.

The Golden Palace is a Venetian Gothic building with a Byzantine architectural style. The ground floor has a recessed colonnade that accesses the foyer directly from the canal. Above the colonnade is the enclosed balcony of the master’s room of the “noble floor”, which is supported by a row of delicate Windows in a Corinthian column; Above it is a similarly enclosed balcony, but lighter.

After the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797, the palace changed hands several times. The last owner, Baron Georges Franchetti, donated it to the state in 1922. After restoration, it is now open to the public as an art gallery.

Ca ‘Rezzonico is a three-story marble palace on the right bank of the Grand Canal. It was once the home of the Bon family, a Venetian aristocrat. In 1649, the family leader hired one of the most famous Baroque architects of the time to renovate the building. However, the architect died in 1682 before the building was finished, and the Bon family went bankrupt.

The Rezonico family then took over the unfinished palace. The family, originally merchants, had bought nobility (and entered their names in the Book of Gold, a roll of nobility) by donating large sums of money to the Republic in the mid-17th century, when the coffers of Venice were depleted after the war with Turkey. In other words, the property had changed owners from old aristocracy to nouveau riche. But the architects hired by the new owners stuck to the original design, though they added some ideas of their own.

Ground floor entrance This magnificent palace was completed in 1756, the height of the Rezonico family. They live a carefree life here. But as the saying goes, “A hundred days never red,” the family died out in 1810, leaving only their vast palace, which continued to use the Rezonico name.

The Palazzo Rezonico is currently used as Venice’s 18th Century Museum, which displays 18th century Venetian art.

Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute The Basilica di Santa Maria Della Salute (Italian: Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute), simply called “Salute”, is a masterpiece of Venetian Baroque architecture. At the height of the Black Death in 1630, the Republic decided to build this church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It was designed by Baldassarre Longner and officially completed in 1687.

On November 20 every year, pilgrims gather at the Church of the Virgin Mary and offer food.

The Palazzo Barbarigo was originally built in the 16th century. It is now one of the most luxurious buildings along the canal. Part of the building’s interior is dedicated to the display of Venetian glass.

Fondaco dei Turchi (Italian: Fondaco dei Turchi) is a Veneto Byzantine style building built in the first half of the 13th century and acquired by the Republic of Venice in 1381. From the early 17th century until 1838, the building served as Venice’s Turk merchant house, a residence, warehouse and market for Turkish merchants who traded wax, oil and wool in Venice.

Today, the building houses the Venice Museum of Natural History.

The oldest building along the Grand Canal, the Cadamosto House, dates from the 13th century and has a Venetian-Byzantine exterior. The interior of the building is now vacant.

The Venetian Harem was built in 1724 on the site of the home of Queen Catalina Cornaro of Cyprus.

Built between 1718 and 38, the Chapel is a neoclassical building with a portico modeled after the Pantheon and a dome reminiscent of the Shrine of Our Lady of Well-being.

The Palazzo Graci, the last great house to appear on the Grand Canal, was built by Massari in 1748-1772. The building was acquired in 2005 by Pinault, a French modern art collector, and has become the main display for his vast collection. There are sometimes major art exhibitions of his collection.

The Palazzo Venier Leoni, also known as the Palazzo Welcoming the Lion, was originally designed as a five-story building, but only the first floor was completed in the 1750s. When Peggy Guggenheim bought the white marble one-story palace, she furnished it with a collection of modern art.

The bridge over the river.Where there are rivers, there are Bridges. There are four Bridges on the Grand Canal, built of different ages and styles. The oldest of the four Bridges, the Ponte di Rialto (Italian: Ponte di Rialto), also known as the “Giant White Elephant”, is a Renaissance style bridge lined with markets and restaurants. It is a vital link between SAN Marco and Sao Paulo and is always packed with people.

The single-arch stone bridge across the Grand Canal was designed by Antonio da Ponte and completed in 1591. The slanted bridge, which was directed to the central portico, was top-heavy as the project was deemed so bold that it was even predicted to collapse. The Rialto Bridge is now one of the symbols of Venetian architecture.

Today, shops and stalls line the Rialto Bridge, making it one of Venice’s main tourist attractions.

Barefoot, completed in 1934, connects the districts of Canaregio and Holy Cross. The bridge is named for the Barefoot Church on the north side of the bridge.

Ponte dell’Accademia (Italian: Ponte dell’Accademia) is located at the southern end of the Grand Canal. The College Bridge was originally an iron bridge built by the Austrians in 1854, but it was rebuilt as a wooden bridge in the 1930s because larger water buses could not pass under it. But the structure was unstable, so it was rebuilt again in 1985, reinforced with steel.

The Constitution Bridge (Italian: Ponte della Costituzione) is the fourth bridge over the Grand Canal. It was designed by Santiago Calatrava, a Spanish architect and sculptor known as the “poet of architecture”, so it is also commonly known as the Bridge of Calatrava. When it was completed in September 2008, it was fiercely criticized, in part because its modern simplicity was seen as incompatible with Venice’s medieval image.

But consider that the Louvre Pyramid, designed by the renowned Chinese architect and Pritzker Prize winner Ieoh Ming Pei, is now as much a symbol of Paris as the Eiffel Tower, an earlier and equally controversial landmark. Could the same be true of this bridge? This may only be known to posterity.