Venice is sharply divided over plans by Pierre Cardin, the fashion magnate, to build a futuristic, Dubai-style skyscraper which critics say will impinge on the city's historic skyline of cupolas, bell towers and church spires.
Venice is sharply divided over plans by Pierre Cardin, the fashion magnate, to build a futuristic, Dubai-style skyscraper which critics say will impinge on the city's historic skyline of cupolas, bell towers and church spires.
The 90-year-old designer, who emigrated to France from the Veneto region as a young man, wants to build the 800ft-tall, €1.5 billion (£1.25 billion) Palais de Lumiere or Palace of Light tower in Porto Marghera, a blighted former industrial zone a few miles from Venice proper.
Opponents say its height and unusual design — three shard-like towers connected by six interlocking, horizontal discs — will make it visible from the heart of the World Heritage-listed lagoon city. The 60-storey, glass and steel building will be double the height of the bell tower in St Mark's Square, the symbol of Venice, and critics say it is more suited to the Emirates than La Serenissima, as the city is known.
But the project will provide jobs for thousands of people in Porto Marghera, a former industrial area which has been badly hit by the closure of chemical plants and oil refineries.
Cardin, whose wealth is estimated at more than €300 million (£233 million), designed the tower with his architect nephew, Rodrigo Basilicati. He recently said that it would be his "last great project".
"We chose this apparently ugly and difficult location because we hope that it will convince other people that Porto Marghera can enter a new chapter," Basilicati told the Corriere del Veneto newspaper. "We'll create four to five thousand jobs, maybe even 7,000."
The skyscraper will have a helicopter landing pad, apartments, restaurants, nearly 60 lifts and a cinema complex. Luca Zaia, the head of the Veneto region, said the tower would be Venice's answer to the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, all rolled into one. "And it will be the start of the renaissance of the whole Porto Marghera area," he said.
Politicians gave it the green light earlier this year, but like many such projects in Italy, it has become mired in controversy. Italy's civil aviation authority, Enac, says the tower could pose a problem for aircraft using Marco Polo airport, the gateway to Venice for millions of tourists. Historians and cultural heritage figures say it is too large and vulgar to be built anywhere near Venice. Tomaso Montanari, an art historian, said it was a project the "emirs of the Gulf" would have dreamt up. Cardin, who is due to lay the first symbolic stone in September, is reportedly becoming impatient with the delays and has said that if Venetians cannot sort out their disagreements, he will take his vision elsewhere, perhaps to China or Dubai.
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