North Arsenal Restoration

Renovation of the historical buildings related to the intervention aimed at setting the production, management and maintenance activities of the “Mo.S.E System” in the north part of the Venice Arsenale.

Preliminary and detailed project.

In progress

The Arsenal represented for centuries the fulcrum of both economic and civil history of Venice, as a place where the great part of strategical productive activities were concentrated, and as a place of innovation and technological research. From this point of view, the Arsenal of Venice can be considered as the most ancient “factory” of the world, since it represents the major example of centralized productive complex of the preindustrial economy.

The evolution of its structure is therefore marked by a succession of widenings and continuous evolution of the building typology, related to progress of the naval construction techniques. The Old Arsenal – the first hub of the shipbuilding complex – was built between 1100 and 1300. In the modern upgrade of the Arsenal north, the restoration of buildings has to be done in order to avoid and attenuate the architectonic and structural degradation. The restoration concerns the buildings as well as the hystorical dry docks.