The Line
by Tommaso Saccarola
portfolio special mention call 'URBANAUTICA INSTITUTE AWARDS 2021', 2021
Category: Representations of Space, Architecture, and Conflicts
The aim of this photographic project is to document the deep urban separation between Mestre and Marghera: two townships part of the same city, Venice, that are divided by the railway line and the four-lane road SR11, named via della Libertà. A line that is wide and impervious to the people who want to go from one side to the other. Asphalt, concrete, walls, fences, iron, tracks, guard rails: everything makes it hard to walk across. The viability was built for transports functional to the industrial development, for trucks and cars and trains. There are just a few pedestrian crossings, but they are uncomfortable, dilapidated, unsafe, inhabited by decay. A sort of abandoned suburb in the center of the city, a central area that could be lively and vital. In July, 2020, the agreement to build a wide pedestrian bridge above the railway station was approved, but this project does not consider to renovate all the area.