How Were Houses in Ancient Venice Designed and Why?

Venice was founded between the 5th and 6th century by wealthy people from the mainland who were fleeing the barbarians. They took a collection of islands in a lagoon and built a city connected by canals.

The geography of Venice is marshy with lots of islands. More land was made available for building by draining the water. The topsoil was very unstable, and would change according to the tides, so houses and buildings were designed to sit on large wooden platforms on the soft clay soil. For the larger structures, support piles were pushed into the ground, hopefully to a layer of firmer clay.

Since the platforms and piles were wet most of the time, they presented a problem for builders of that time. Water proof stone blocks from Istria were used in foundation walls to keep some of the moisture out.

Houses could not be too heavy on the wooden platforms, so that dictated the use and wood and brick for the main building materials. Builders used a soft mortar made of lime that was flexible enough to withstand the settling of the buildings.  They needed to spread out the weight, so there would not be areas of stress, so the closely spaced beams of the floor were nailed into beams of the walls which spread out the weight over the whole length of the wall.  

Venetian Architecture

The style of houses and buildings had to take into account the special conditions of Venice. Because of the weight distribution issue, domes and vaults were rarely used. Open truss roofs were used on churches, and vaulting was used later as they were made more secure by tie beams.

Windows were used a lot because glass was in good supply and they did not add too much weight to the house or building. This led to the use of colonnades and loggias.

Since the city could not expand outwardly, it expanded up. It was usually cheaper to build another floor onto your house than to buy land or another house. In a typical house:

• The ground floor housed your business, with offices, storage, and a warehouse for customers.
• The second floor was used to entertain and was beautifully decorated.
• The upper floor housed the family, and the attic had rooms for the servants.

The way Venetians obtained fresh water had a bearing on the architecture. Since they could not drink the salty water of the lagoon, and it rained a lot in Venice, they devised a system of collecting rain water. Roofs were very steep and had gutters to collect the rain water and channel it to underground collection areas called cisterns. These cisterns were accessed by carved, stone well heads and were placed all over the city wherever there was a small open space. Large houses usually had their own cistern.

Since guests arrived at your home by boat, the side of the house facing the canal would be highly decorated while the rest was plain.  Most houses have three stories, with the kitchen either on the main floor, for access to water, or on the upper floor to allow the smells of cooking to escape.    

A City of Cities

Each island of Venice is pretty much self-contained. Each had its own water supply, and a square, or Campo, in the center, where many activities took place.  Also, a church with a bell tower usually was built in the Campo. Around the Campo would be Palazzi, or palaces, where the ground floor had a warehouse where people could shop.

There are not as many bridges are you might think. The Grand Canal has only one which is made of white marble. Other bridges are often privately owned, and sometimes charge tolls.