Making Venice Work

The city of Venice, Italy, is a complex, historic, watery, tourist-filled place. This video explains how the city works.

1 minute read

April 8, 2011, 6:00 AM PDT

By Nate Berg


"3,000,000 tourists move through Venice each year. But when the tourists leave the city, 270,000 year-round residents stay behind, continuing their daily lives, which requires navigating an archipelago made up of 124 islands, 183 canals and 438 bridges. How this complicated city works – how the buildings are defended from water, how the buildings stand on unsteady ground, how the Venetians navigate this maze of a city – is a pretty fascinating story. These techniques have been worked out over Venice's 1500 year history."

The video was produced by the Venetian government agency and shows an in-depth look at how the city operates.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 in Open Culture

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

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