MENDICANTI COMPLEX – OSPEDALE CIVILE IN VENICE
Progetto
Facade and roof restoration
Luogo
Venice
Date
2017-2021
Cliente
ULSS 3 Serenissima
Superficie
2,600 square meters
The present complex of Venice’s city hospital (Ospedale Civile) in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo consists of a grouping of four historically distinct complexes of buildings or areas: The Dominican Convent of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo and the Scuola Grande di San Marco, the oldest, located to the south, toward the square, adjacent to the church of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo; consisting of the spaces of the former Dominican convent and the Scuola Grande di San Marco; The 16th- century Ospedale of S. Lazzaro dei Mendicanti facing the northern lagoon, constitutes one of the earliest examples of buildings designed, from its origin, to be a hospital; a function it still performs today; the Central Area, the third core, represented by the central area of the complex. The southern part of this area was still, at the time of De Barbari’s map, characterized by a very low population density, made up of courtyards with a few buildings which were probably warehouses and possibly related to the activity of selling timber that characterized the axis of Barbaria delle Tole; and the fourth area with the Church and Convent of Santa Maria del Pianto founded around the middle of the seventeenth century. The Church, also called “delle Cappuccine” or “dei Sette Dolori” is located opposite the island of San Michele, a few meters from the Fondamenta Nuove and half-hidden by a high wall. Architecturally simple, it was built between 1647 and 1659 as a thanksgiving for the cessation of the plague that had devastated the city of Venice and was consecrated the same year as the Basilica della Salute.
Between 2017 and 2021, the Mendicanti complex and the church of Santa Maria del Pianto underwent two separate interventions involving the restoration of the Mendicanti facades and roofs and the securing and overall restoration project for Santa Maria del Pianto.
THE RESTORATION OF THE FACADES AND ROOFS OF THE MENDICANTI.
The building in its most representative part is perfectly symmetrical, ingeniously masking the “defect” of the lack of planimetric symmetry and centering on the monumental facade of the Church of San Lazzaro, whose construction can be considered completed in 1673 with the completion of the Palladian-inspired façade which serves as a connecting element between the north and south cloisters. These cloisters were originally assigned one to men and the other to women. Also of special interest are the interior cloisters with their porticoes, terraces and wellheads that constitute elements of undoubted historical architectural value. The conservation project involved only the parts of the building facing the Rio dei Mendicanti with the cleaning, consolidation and integration of the plasterwork as well as interventions on the masonry of the north wing, which had a structure particularly eroded by the wind and disconnected from the structure behind it, to which it was appropriately reconnected. Of particular interest was the stonework intervention on the church, in the internal entrance hall, and on the sculpture of the counter-façade, which presented, in several places, conditions of rather advanced degradation due mainly to humidity, sea air and pigeon droppings. The intervention then concerned the roofs in function of the seismic improvement of these buildings as far as respecting their monumental character. Some minimal interventions were then carried out on the main structures, some of which had been heavily remodeled in the early 1960s, and the roofing underlay was replaced with new wooden boards and a reinforcement of the truss joints. Finally, for the roofing membrane, a partially ventilated solution was chosen that would allow micro ventilation of the roof.
THE SECURING OF THE CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA DEL PIANTO AND THE RESTORATION PROJECT
The Church of Santa Maria del Pianto has long been attributed to Baldassarre Longhena, given the similarities of the central plan system with the Basilica della Salute. Both churches constitute the earliest examples of Baroque architecture with a central plan, from which all subsequent variations on the theme would depart. The aula is covered by a flat ceiling because the dome was never built. Had it been built as planned, it would have given the room quite another spatial development. In 1971 the Administration of the Ospedale Civile in Venice (today named the Azienda Ulss 3 Serenissima) decided to purchase it to incorporate the structure into the Ss. Giovanni e Paolo hospital complex. The recent restoration of the entire complex, which aimed to reuse the convent as a university campus, research laboratories, guest quarters and hospital archives, involved the main cloister, the minor cloister and the northern part, effectively excluding the church of Santa Maria del Pianto. In 2020, it became necessary to define safety interventions to stop the progressive deterioration of the building. The “emergency construction site” allowed for understanding the other critical issues which were not visible in order to develop the technical and economic feasibility for the overall restoration with greater knowledge and awareness. The project had to consider several aspects: the protection of the building, the preservation of the monumental appearance, the maintenance of outdoor spaces, and the sustainability of the investment over time. The condition of the structures led to a targeted intervention to permanently solve the critical structural issues of the main roof of the church by using metal rims, restoration of the degraded beams, fixing the disconnected nodes, reconstruction of the damaged masonry and of the minor roofs, which resulted in fixing almost the entire load-bearing framework. The stone elements were cleaned and where necessary affixed and patched. The external plaster fragments were patched along the edges to contain water infiltration and thus prevent further collapse, broken glass and missing windows were replaced with elements similar to the existing ones.