In Quest of Modernity: Le Corbusier’s Project for the New Civic Hospital in Venice

The paper deals with Le Corbusier’s unbuilt project for Venice analyzing the meaning of the Civic Hospital within the cultural context between 1954, the year in which the new master plan started to take shape, and 1966, when an extraordinary ‘acqua alta’ put an end to city’s contemporary ambitions. In Venice’s quest for modernity, the master plan (1954-1962), the national competition for the San Giuliano district (1959), the national competition for the Hospital (1963) and the international one for the Tronchetto Island (1964-1965) represent key events in which conservatives and modernists found themselves face to face, and in relation to which Le Corbusier’s project has not yet been studied. Even though Le Corbusier’s Hospital was presented to the public opinion as a courageous and innovative project, this paper seeks to demonstrate that it was actually more in line with the conservative front because it brought back the “problem of Venice” to its insular dimension after more than a decade of attempts to solve it considering a wider regional frame.