Excursion to Venice

Few cities have shaped, and been shaped by, their architecture and location as profoundly as Venice: Built across a lagoon, it is a dense weave of canals, bridges, and public squares in which centuries of building have been layered one upon another. This city, raised on mud and salt water, is dependent on the immediate ecological reationship with the lagoon. The interaction between the urban structure and water is visible in its most detailed consequences: in the typology of the buildings, their daily use and economy, in the infrastructure of the canals, in the inventiveness and pragmatism displayed in the ancient rainwater-collection and sewage systems.

During four days on foot and aboard the vaporetti, we will read the city as an architectural and ecological document, tracing how it holds together permanence and change, ecology and modernity, tradition and renewal. Alongside the wider urban exploration, among other things the programme includes a visit to the island of Sant’Erasmo, with its specific agricultural production, maritime and fluvial soil combined, and water management.

The field trip coincides with the 61st Art Biennale (La Biennale di Venezia), which in 2026 again turns the city into a meeting point for art from around the world. Many of the contributions are conceived as spatial installations that define and transform the rooms they occupy, making the exhibition an unusually rich stimulus for architectural thinking. Experienced together with the city that surrounds it, the Biennale opens up questions of history, reinvention, and design practice that lie at the heart of this excursion. The excursion takes place from the 3rd to the 7th of November 2026. You are very welcome to join us in exploring Venice. Please bring your sketchbook, camera, and a good measure of curiosity.

This module can only be chosen in combination with the module "Heritage Killjoy. Erbe als umkämpftes Konzept" (Key Competence 4, Nos. I and II / Part 1) by Prof. Dr. Luise Rellensmann and LB Lukas Strasser

Excursion: 03.11. – 07.11.2026

First meeting and introduction:
Wednesday, 15:30 pm, room N113, Infanteriestraße