Manifesto for Venice

On 4 and 5 November 2016, exactly fifty years since the flood of 1966 that so dramatically highlighted to the world Venice’s vulnerability, the Fondazione Giorgio Cini held an international workshop on the future of the lagoon city entitled “Sustainability of local commons with a global value: Venice and its lagoon”.

The workshop was attended by a group of international experts who, from the viewpoint of their own particular disciplines, approached the theme of how to safeguard and sustainably develop Venice and its lagoon as a local commons with a global value.

The two days of discussion (see the filmed recordings of the sessions on this page) have already produced an initial result: The Manifesto for the Future of Venice (download here). Starting from an analysis of the city’s main problems, the document suggests a series of immediately applicable practical proposals to safeguard Venice and its lagoon.

The Manifesto has been signed by Bonnie Burnham, President Emerita, World Monuments Fund; Joan Busquets, Urban Planner, Harvard University; Charles Landry, Urbanologist and Writer; Simon Levin, Ecologist, Princeton University; Yves Mény, President, Scuola Universitaria Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa; Charles Perrings, Environmental Economist, Arizona State University; Greg W. Richards, Professor of Leisure Studies, Tilburg University; Richard Sennett, Sociologist, London School of Economics; and Pier Vellinga, Climate Impact Scientist, Wageningen University.