EXPLORING EUROPE (2 of 10)
Venice shows me that architecture
first of all is about life

Venice is a perfectly beautiful city. The smells, the sounds, the narrow alleys, canals, bridges. Places suddenly, often unexpectedly, opens as you go. The music, The gondoliers’ songs, vaparettos, taxi boats. I feel well. It is as if I'm in the middle of the very architectural being.

I was once one of many who believed that architecture is primarily about buildings. Venice shows me that architecture first of all is about life. Our human life. How it is the architecture which gives us the framework and background for how best to walk, sit, eat, sleep, work, meet with others, experience beauty.

I understand that the spaces between buildings are as important as the houses themselves. That the widths, heights, depths and connections between everything we surround ourselves with are important. The relationship between them. Interaction. Venice makes me feel that the physical is in total harmony with life itself. Also the spiritual.

It is as if the body, intellect and spirituality converge. I feel an intense happiness. Maybe this town is the world's leading symbol of what an architect should strive to achieve in his work. Maybe it has something to teach us about ourselves. About how important it is to think holistically, holistic in the way we plan our environment and our lives.

"A great architect is not made by way of a brain nearly so much as he is made by way of a cultivated, enriched heart," said the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Venice tells me that he is right. One does not become a good architect, no matter how much knowledge is acquired, without having talent and an inner inspiration that drives one to draw very good environment for real people interacting with each other. Empathy. Synergy. Proximity. Emotions. In a living symbiosis.

“Form follows function - that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union,” says Lloyd Wright also. He emphasizes that "Art for art's sake is a philosophy of the well-fed." "Get the habit of analysis -analysis goodwill in time enable synthesis two become your habit of mind. All fine architectural values ​​are human values​​else not valuable," he concludes. Venice is to me proof of that…

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