A HOUSE FOR MARINETTI - IN VENICE

 

 

If Nietzsche was right in his claim that one can learn more from his enemies than from his friends, then, perhaps, Venice would have much to learn from Marinetti.

 

But was Marinetti right in his furious attack against Venice...?

 

If we contemplate its beautiful squares, its beautiful narrow streets, its beautiful canals, its beautiful old buildings, its beautiful sunsets, we probably say: "No, Marinetti was definitely wrong."

 

Yet, eighty percent of the population of Venice left - as we read - left towards the world of cars, highways, pollution, supermarkets, tall apartment buildings, that is, towards the "real life" - as lived today.

 

And they left behind the dreamy Venice, abandoning her to the swarming tourists.

 

We invite you to bring back the life of Venice against melancholia, against nostalgia, against the narcissism of her splendors.

 

Fight AGAINST Venice, not out of hatred, or out of a deadly form of indifference, but out of a higher form of love, the one Cordelia had towards her erring, and aging father, King Lear.

 

Love VENICE in a different way, than the swarming tourists do!

 

Love Venice with that paradoxical love Marinetti probably had, in his exasperations with a past that was refusing to convincingly become PRESENT!

 

Build A HOUSE FOR MARINETTI, in Venice!

 

Build a House that would make one, at first, of those eighty percent Venetians that left home, return in a rush!

 

Provoke Venice with an architecture that would tell her former residents: come back, and banish the tourists! There is a breath of new life in Venice, for you, dear Venetians - and less for you, voracious tourists!

 

Build a scream, if necessary, build a fire, if necessary, build an ugly building, if necessary, BUILD FOR THE PRESENT, ARDENTLY SO, NECESSARILY SO, UGLILY SO, if this is what it takes.

 

Scream at Venice as Cordelia Lear (probably) screamed at her father!

 

Do not relegate your revolt, or your contestation, to the more or less self-satisfied Biennale, build WITHIN THE CITY, BUILD FOR THE CITY, BUILD FOR THAT FURIOUS MARINETTI who probably OUT OF LOVE, wrote violently AGAINST VENICE!

 

Build against Venice, dear architect, if you truly love her!

 

Don't adulate her!

 

Tell her the truth, the truth of your / her bleeding heart!

 

Shock her, if necessary, slap her on her face, if necessary, BRING HER BACK TO LIFE!

 

And tell Thomas Mann to send Gustav von Asherbach home, or to make him find somewhere else the languid seductions of death.

 

Bring TRUE EROS TO VENICE, dear architect, if you are to balance, organically, its fatal attraction to death.

 

Smash THANATOS!

 

Smash the beautiful sunset!

 

Smash the beautiful canal!

 

Smash the beautiful gondolas!

 

Smash the grand palazzos!

 

Smash the glamor and the glitter and the carnivals and the zestful Biennales...!

 

Smash everything, and start anew!

 

If you love her, Venice!

 

Wake her up, and build a House for Marinetti that would give Venice shivers!

 

And of course we will drop your projects, as leaflets, on the tired shoulders of the tired tourists, from the very top of St. Mark's Campanile, exactly one hundred years since Marinetti did the very same thing, with his "Anti-Venice" manifesto...!

 

Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme to: info@icarch.us. We will publish all the works received on our website: www.icarch.us. As an experiment, we propose that the jury be composed of the competitors themselves. Thus, the same people who enter the competition will also judge it, by a voting system that allows one to evaluate all the works received, except his / her own. The registration deadline is December 31st, 2010. The submission deadline is December 31st, 2010. If you have any questions please contact us.

 

Thank you,

 

ICARCH Gallery