How to Save a Psychotop

Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls

Are level with the waters, there shall be

A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,

A loud lament along the sweeping sea!

As Byron's lines suggest, Venetians long have been preoccupied with a ghastly civic problem: their lovely city is slowly sinking into the water. Already, in the stormy autumn and winter seasons, Venetians sometimes move through St. Mark's Square in gondolas, and housewives occasionally have to do their shopping in fishermen's boots.

The trouble comes partly from the artesian wells and methane gas taps that weaken the substrata on which the city is built. During storms the lagoon's water tears at the ancient buildings. Similar erosion is caused by the waves of the numerous motorboats, patronized by those too impatient to use gondolas.

The Mayor's Appeal. Disaster is still some time away, for the rate of the city's descent is less than one-fifth of an inch a year. But the city fathers take the long view: at the present pace, much of Venice could be underwater three generations hence. Somewhat frantic at this statistic, Mayor Giovanni Favaretto Fisco sent out a plea for emergency advice to architects, city planners and art lovers the world over. This month some 200 of them gathered soberly in a tapestried hall on the Isola di San Giorgio to discuss ways to save the fabled city.

The raging debate soon crystallized into two distinct schools of opinion. One group argued that Venice should be preserved as a cultural treasure at any cost. Others were willing to sacrifice a few mosaics and decorated walls in order to end the city's chronic unemployment, and build a bustling, modern economy on the ancient Venetian foundations.

U.S. Architect Richard Neutra pleaded for the preservation of the city's charm. "The engineers can solve all of Venice's problems if the money is found," he said. "But what must never be forgotten is that Venice is a 'psychotop'--a place where you anchor your soul." France's famed Le Corbusier sounded the same note in a letter to the mayor. "Venice must be declared a sacred city," wrote Corbu. "Venice, without roads, is a city where the human nervous system can regain its equilibrium and man's heart open itself to serenity."

Concrete in the Canal? The practical modernists were impatient with this kind of talk. But even they were shocked at one Italian newspaper's suggestion that there were plans in existence to fill in the Grand Canal with concrete and build roads to bring autos to St. Mark's Square.

One French conferee, the eminent Albert Laprade, chief of restoration of the old buildings of Paris, brushed aside the arguments of both camps. He did not think the city was sinking fast enough for anyone to worry. "I think Venetians exaggerate all their problems because they like to have meetings, and this is certainly the most wonderful place to meet. Therefore, let us have many more of them, perhaps in a motor-driven Noah's Ark in the year 2062."

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