Sinking City Historical Heritage

[Luciana]

This museum project investigates the question of heritage in the sinking city of Venice by adapting and altering the access into a the Arsenal as resident-space while simultaneously differentiating itself as a memorial to the city and the arsenal. The history of the aquatic inhabitants suggests adaptive transformations of the built environment as a rebuttal to the programatic progression towards tourism at the cost of residency.

The natural setting of the city that was once romantic and nostalgic has turned into a threatened environment. Since the 1968 high-tide flood, Venice is grappling with rising sea levels and temporary populations while balancing sinking foundations, residents, and fresh water reserves.

There is a confrontational distinction between memory and history that has developed through the ability to record, catalog , and archive. UNESCO is entangled in this distinction, and as a result the city of Venice is a unique urban environment that is not only struggling against the rising waters but restrictive preservation.

The wall of the Arsenal is one of the preserved elements. It encompasses more then just itself; it extends into the fabric of Venice as a territory. During the height of naval power, the Arsenalotti almost exclusively lived in the surrounding neighborhoods. As a group, they would patrol their neighborhoods, extending a protective barrier of the wall and the power of the Arsenal into Venice. As a physical object, the wall separates the remaining industrial fabric from the rest of the city. Attached to the wall are odd-end open spaces on either side.

Inside the Arsenal, there are a series of tesas perpendicular to the water. Tesas are structural bays with a consistent logic of bearing-wall-construction used throughout the buildings of Venice, but at a larger ship scale inside the Arsenal. They served as dry and wet docks during the construction and arming of boats from the 13th through the 16th century. Arranged together, they formed an interior interdependent logic; a series of porous boundary spaces around the perimeter of the Arsenal. The arrangement of the tesas, one next to another, functioned as a pre-industrial assembly line using the water to move the boats from one tesa to another instead of transporting workers and materials to each boat.

While the tesas of the Arsenal were regularly organized along the perimeter, the interiors of the tesa were not regular. Each tesa differed depending on the different functions and programs according to the assembly line orientation of the tesa.The dichotomy between rigid exterior and flexible interior allowed for an identifiable building typology that accommodated many programs much more complicated, specific, and even changing over time.

With the flexibility in the tesa, the Arsenal has developed several times through the centuries as a productive complex of buildings, water, and walls. As time went by, it kept losing its military importance, becoming a more commerce-related site. It is, to some effect, had the same functional transition as the city of Venice itself. In more recent times, the space has been adapted as productive to show case the artisans of Venice. In 1980, the first International Architecture Exhibition took place inside the Arsenal Building of Ropes and Building of Artillery. Along with some boat manufacturing, the THETIS organization, responsible for the management of the MOSE project, is now located inside the Arsenal. For more exclusive events, different buildings can be rented in the Arsenal. Some buildings have been remodeled, but lack a permanent program; they are used for dinner parties or private events. The structural flexibility reflects the adaptive characteristics of the Venetian environment of building fabric and population.

Historically, the Arsenal and the galleys built within it were the main form of protection of Venice in warfare and economy by producing the galleys. During the Republic of Venice, galleys could be made specifically for voyages, battles, or cargo and were the main type of protection for the city.

It should provide open space as a public structure by attempting to transform the Arsenal wall and empty tesas into protected open spaces. The museum typology required of the program aligns itself more with the memory of the Arsenal, not the history, by weaving paths and spaces into the existing naval ruins.

The urban design opens two new plazas in the arsenal and returns them to the residents of Venice by simply providing open access to the spaces with no commercial value. [A park as a park.] The building bridges from the historic town into the middle of the arsenal.

With this extension into the arsenal, the building acts as two bridges woven together. The first bridge allows 24-hour access to both the plazas. The second bridge is more robust, with two enclosed spaces at each end. On the ground floor, the spaces have a mixed identity, and are adaptive to fit with the ideas of museum, memorial and plaza. On the west side, there is a cafe open to both sides. It extends into the first plaza in the arsenal and the first bridge.

Since the discovery of the two long-lost cities and other underwater sites, scientists and researchers have been striving to unravel the reason behind the collapse and submergence of these great cities more than 1,500 years ago. They are also investigating the probability of history repeating itself.

The Mediterranean region has a witnessed many destructive earthquakes, among them the 365 Crete earthquake, which happened between the fourth and sixth centuries and was followed by a devastating tsunami that swept out Alexandria, and the Nile Delta, killing thousands.

The lake, which used to be much larger, is filled with brackish water because it receives a large amount of sewerage output and discharge of untreated irrigation wastewater that comes from the western delta. Although it connects to neither the Mediterranean Sea nor the River Nile, in order to keep the water level in this landlocked lake below sea level, water gets pumped and discharged from the lake into the sea.

But the chosen location was a barren area. So the engineer needed to establish a complex, intelligent system to supply water from the Nile through canals, and then distribute water through a branched pipeline system and store it in underground tanks.

Morsy contributed to the project., He sees it as a good way to raise awareness on how the city water sector was historically managed, and the challenges the city is going through. All is done through an interactive map done based on historical maps and city plans.

The ancient Alexandria was also built on limestone coastal ridges covered by a layer of clay, then a layer of the Nile river silt accumulated through the years. These landforms added to the fragility of the land toward subsidence, Morsy explained. The ancient Alexandria was also built on limestone coastal ridges that were covered by a layer of clay, then a layer of the Nile river silt that was accumulated through the years and these landforms added to the fragility of the land toward subsidence, Morsy explained.

Between 1987 and 1994, artificial beach nourishment projects were implemented at Abu Qir, Stanley, El Asafra, Mandara and El Shatby beaches, with and without concrete jetties. According to the UNESCO report, every year, 20-ton blocks are dumped into the water to protect the Corniche (road built along a coast) wall from wave action and seasonal winter floods.

Humans tried to mimic those natural islands, and make artificial islands through land reclamation. Part of the supposed benefits of those islands is protecting the main shoreline. The government reclaimed a big part of the shore in Alexandria. In the north coast, and in Al-Alamein city to the west of Alexandria, a big project of land reclamation took place, aiming to build more than 25 high buildings, each including more than 41 floors.

Unlike the old city of Alexandria, the new Al-Alamein is considering coastal protection mechanisms throughout the construction process. During my visit to the place, I witnessed the large scale of engineering coastal protection work even before the completion of the construction.

Working as climate change advisor at the technical office in the Ministry of Environment and Environmental Affairs Agency has given Nadia Mohamed Elmasry a chance to witness what is happening on the ground to save Alexandria from sinking.

In 2017 she was involved in a project with the Public Authority for Shore Protection on a project to map the hotspots that urgently need the construction of tide breakers, to decrease erosion in these areas.

The Egyptian government is facing this threat from many quarters. At the top of the list come the Egyptian Coastal Research Institute and the Egyptian Public Authority for Shore Protection, whose roles are to monitor the evolution of the Egyptian coasts to determine the near shore zone changes of the coasts. They predict future changes in the coastal zone by using mathematical models to select the most economical and effective protective measures.

They also prepared the Alexandria Integrated Coastal Zone Management Project (AICZM) under climate change scenarios, along with other entities such as the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) which, they say, is providing the most efficient, low cost and effective control works to protect the heavily populated areas.

Alexandria has gone through many phases of abundance and deterioration throughout its modern history. The city lost its prestigious place and importance as a cultural and commercial center, and its population notably declined. It happened just before the earthquake that hit the city and caused big damage to its infrastructure and buildings, including ruining the lighthouse around 956 AD.

She explained that Alexandria faces two challenges. The first is repeating the same scenario and sinking again by tsunamis or earthquakes, and the second is the seasonal sinking every winter because of the extreme weather events.

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