Procuratie Vecchie

There is a strange contradiction embedded in the meaning of preservation. The act of preservation suggests that history is a stable entity and does not acknowledge change; but in reality preservation means change – it is a form of adaptation or evolution through technique. It is not the opposite of modernity, but rather its product.

Conceived as an integral component of Piazza San Marco since its original installment in the XII century, the Procuratie Vecchie underwent a series of radical alterations as part of the historical mutations of the Foro Marciano as a whole. Behind the rigorous seriality of its endless horizontal façade, the building has been a territory of urban and typological experimentation: courtyards introduced (Sansovino XV), urban connections opened, level added, façade adapted, domestic units reinvented, punctual modifications injected, etc. Its current organization echoes surprisingly a modern rationale, with an unseen potential for flexible adaptation.