Venice inspiration for a city without cars

Howard Chapman, Buildingtalk Editor on the Architecture Biennale 2016 in Venice and how it should inspire us to transform London into a city for people.

I was in Italy at the weekend visiting Venice, my favourite European city, and an inspiration for how central London could be transformed if it was largely free of cars and given back to it’s citizens and visitors.

Venice Architecture Exhibition

My visit to Venice coincided with the 15th International Architecture Exhibition that takes place from May 28th to November 27th 2016 in the Giardini and the Arsenale venues and in various other venues in Venice.

The exhibition is called REPORTING FROM THE FRONT and includes 88 participants from 37 different countries.

Norman Foster was there, promoting his Foundation and highlighting the benefits of a new high performance building material – a cross between a brick and a tile, developed by Lafarge, that uses basic earth materials available around the world.

The material was used to build a rather beautiful ‘Drone Station’ erected alongside the lagoon in Venice. Here is a video of Norman waxing lyrical about it and the future of architecture – and how drones are going to change the world.

I didn’t have time to explore much of the exhibition but Venice is always an inspiration.

So why not visit Venice and combine a city break with an architectural feast?