It'
s the most romantic, beautiful view there is.The past two days has seen some sensory overload for us, as we spent most of time wandering around the Venice Biennale. It's a massive international design and architecture expo, well known in those industries.
The Biennale is set in various parts of the Venice island, a large part of it in the docklands and industrial area, in old, huge warehouses, which gave the exhibits a very 'renewal space' ambience. The other major part is set in a large, treed park with counry pavilions, which gives it the feel of the Easter Rand Show in the seventies. The exhibits were varied, ranging from very technical architecural designs and theoretical displays, through to heavy intellectual, critical and philosophical interpretations of architectural and urban design, and a large portion of modern and sometimes whimsical design and art forms.
The lasting impression we left with is how diverse and varied interpretations of the spaces we live in are. And that a brick is not just a brick.
We went out of our way to see the SOuth African pavilion, which was in a remote part of the expo, but it turned out to be closed. Eish...
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We visited an area early this morning known as the Ghetto. Like Ghetto areas elsewhere in the world, it was the space where urban Jews lived, often under less than ideal circumstances. It doesn't look much different from other parts of Venice, though the sound of Hebrew is in the air suddenly, as Israeli tour groups pass through. Sitting on the 'Ghetto Square' we were fascinated by the reception these groups received from the local Chabad. It was a kind of a welcoming ritual, which involved some singing, blessing and reading from the Torah. I got the impression for some of them visiting the Ghetto was a kind of pilgrimage.
There were also a few Jewish curio shops in the area. A tourist is a tourist is a tourist...
