The Napoleonic or Biennale Gardens are public gardens in Venice, located in the Castello district. They constitute the largest green area in the historic center and, as the name suggests, are home to the Venice International Art Exhibition.
The origin of the park dates back to the second Napoleonic period
when in 1807 with the Decree bearing various provisions in favor of the
city of Venice (nº 261 of 7 December 1807) it was established that the
city of Venice should also be equipped with areas used as public green
areas .
The design was entrusted to Giannantonio Selva. The works
lasted from 1808 to 1812: to obtain the space necessary for the purpose,
the churches and convents of San Domenico, San Nicolò di Castello, the
Cappuccine Concette, Sant'Antonio and the Ospitale dei Marinai were
demolished and with the rubble obtained after the demolition, steps were
taken to consolidate the land, to create a small hill on which a café
was placed and to cover the nearby Sant'Anna canal to build Via Eugenia
(now Via Garibaldi); as regards the choice of plants, the collaboration
of Pietro Antonio Zorzi was used, albeit with some difficulty given the
climatic peculiarities of Venice.
Since the end of the 19th
century, starting with the construction of the first pavilion of the
Biennale, the Pro Arte in 1894, the gardens have been divided into two
parts: the first, of approximately 42,000 m², was granted to the Ente
Biennale where the various exhibition spaces were set up of the art
review (30 pavilions for as many participating nations), the other, of
18,000 m², has remained used as a public garden.
The gardens contain a florid vegetation, among which the various
twentieth-century architectures of the pavilions are organized,
mostly around a central avenue from which minor paths unfold, each
characterized by the name of the hosted nation.
Below is the
list of exhibition pavilions dedicated to each participating nation,
in chronological order of construction with the corresponding
architects:
Central pavilion (ex Italian pavilion) - formerly
"Pro Arte palace": Enrico Trevisanato, facade by Mario de Maria and
Bartholomeo Bezzi, 1895; new facade by Guido Cirilli, 1914; renamed
"Italian Pavilion", facade by Duilio Torres, 1932; inside the
current pavilion there is the sculpture garden, designed by Carlo
Scarpa in 1952, and the Pastore auditorium by Valeriano Pastor, from
1977.
Belgian pavilion, by Léon Sneyers, 1907; restored by Virgil
Vallot, 1948
Hungarian pavilion, by Géza Rintel Maróti, 1909;
restored by Benkhard August, 1958
Germany pavilion, by Daniele
Donghi, 1909, demolished and rebuilt in 1938 by Ernst Haiger
Great Britain pavilion, by Edwin Alfred Rickards, 1909
France
pavilion, by Umberto Bellotto, 1912
Holland Pavilion, by Gustav
Ferdinand Boberg, 1912, demolished and rebuilt 1953 by Gerrit Thomas
Rietveld
pavilion Russia, by Alexei Scusev V., 1914
Spain
pavilion, by Javier De Luque, 1922, with facade renovated in 1952 by
Joaquin Vaquero Palacios
Czech and Slovak Republic pavilion by
Otakar Novotny, 1926, enlarged and reconstructed by Boguslav
Rychlinch, 1970
United States of America pavilion, by Chester
Holmes Aldrich and William Adams Delano, 1930
Denmark pavilion,
by Carl Brummer, 1932, extended 1958 by Peter Koch
Venice
pavilion, by Brenno Del Giudice, 1932, enlarged in 1938; this
pavilion is a single large architectural structure that hosts the
participations of several nations (Serbia, Egypt, Poland and
Romania). In 2011 the central exedra built in 1932 was reopened to
the public after the restoration
Austria pavilion, by Josef
Hoffmann with the collaboration of Robert Kramreiter, 1934; restored
by Hans Hollein, 1984
Greece pavilion, by M. Papandréou and
Brenno Del Giudice, 1934
Ticket office, Carlo Scarpa, 1951
Israel Pavilion, by Zeev Rechter, 1952; modified by Fredrik Fogh,
1966
Switzerland pavilion by Bruno Giacometti, 1952
Venezuela
pavilion by Carlo Scarpa, 1954
Japan pavilion, by Takamasa
Yoshizaka, 1956
Finland pavilion, by Alvar Aalto, 1956; restored
by Fredrik Fogh with the collaboration of Elsa Makiniemi, 1976-1982
Canada Pavilion, by the BBPR Group (Gian Luigi Banfi, Ludovico
Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Enrico Peressutti, Ernesto Nathan Rogers),
1958
Uruguay pavilion, former warehouse of the Biennale, 1958,
handed over to the government of Uruguay, 1960
pavilion of the
Nordic Countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland), by Sverre Fehn, 1962;
adjacent is a small building by Fredrik Fogh, 1987
Brazil
pavilion, by Amerigo Marchesin, 1964
Australian pavilion, by
Philip Cox, 1987
Library, by James Stirling, 1991
Korea
pavilion, by Seok Chul Kim and Franco Mancuso, 1995
Inside the Gardens there are numerous monuments, most of which are
located in the area adjacent to the basin of San Marco.
Partial
list:
monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi by Augusto Benvenuti (1885);
monument to Francesco Querini (1867–1900), explorer who died trying to
reach the North Pole, by Achille Tamburlini (1905);
monument to Pier
Luigi Penzo, aviator, by Francesco Scarpabolla (1902–1999) from 1932;
monument to Riccardo Selvatico by Pietro Canonica, inaugurated on 25
April 1903, on the occasion of the opening of the V Biennale, is a
tribute to the mayor who promoted the exhibition;
monument to the
Soldiers of land and sea, sculpture by Augusto Benvenuti, which
commemorates the help given by the military during the disastrous flood
of 1882. Inaugurated on 16 March 1885, it was located in the nearby
Campo San Biagio and was moved to its current location after the second
disastrous flood of Polesine in November 1951;
monument to Richard
Wagner, the great composer who died in Ca' Vendramin Calergi, work of
1908 by Fritz Schaper (1841–1919);
monument to Giosuè Carducci,
sculpture by Annibale De Lotto from 1912;
monument to Gustavo Modena
by Carlo Lorenzetti;
bust of Giorgio Emo di Capodilista;
bust of
Giuseppe Verdi;
monument to Guglielmo Oberdan by Annibale De Lotto;
monument to the fallen in captivity and to the veterans of Venice by
Angelo Franco;
monument to the Partisan by Augusto Murer on a base by
Carlo Scarpa;
Minerva on the lion, sculpture by Antonio Giaccarelli,
which until 1938 was placed to decorate the facade of the Gallerie
dell'Accademia.