Week 6

Post date: Oct 12, 2013 12:29:30 AM

As the preparation term comes to its end, our project group has gained a firm grasp on the scope and importance of the preservation of Venice's ecclesiastical architecture. Churches, convents, and bell towers laid the foundation of island communities throughout Venice as early as 800. Convents not only housed monastic orders of the time, but provided a community center for all of the residents. As time passed and society progressed, however these pieces of architecture as well as the art within has been lost, damaged, and in extreme cases, destroyed.

In order to help preserve the history of the city, we will gather new data as well as reflect on past project data to assess the need and severity of damage among ecclesiastical architecture. Specifically, we will look at how convents are being actively reused, the condition of church floor artifacts and and guild altars within 144 churches of Venice, and depending on access, the bells of the bell towers of Venice. We will also examine the functionality of the clocks on the exterior of bell towers.

We have spent copious time the past six weeks preparing for our departure to Venice. We have put serious consideration into narrowing the large scope of our project and identifying what will most benefit the historical preservation of Venice. Several previous teams have large and complete sets of data and we hope to add to them as well as make them available to public. With the recommendations we plan to make after seven weeks in Venice, we hope that cultural organizations such as La Soprintendenza and UNESCO will be able to allocate restorations funds with a little more ease.

Until next time,

Venice Bells

(Our team in our second home, the 5th Floor East Hall Tech Suite)

-Dylan Heinricher