Digital Explorations in Archive Drawings: A Project for Cannaregio Ovest in Venice by Luciano Semerani, 1978

The article shows some of the outcomes of a research project begun in 2021 in collaboration with the Archivio Progetti Iuav of Venice, with the aim of disseminating the drawings, documents and projects preserved. On the basis of the documentary collection including pieces, projects, models, together with a conspicuous repository of photographs and reproductions, the research deepens a little-explored aspect of an unbuilt Venice, circumscribing the investigation scope to the 20th century masters of architecture who contributed in rethinking the urban form of the lagoon city, such as Luciano Semerani’s project for the sestiere of Cannaregio Ovest in 1978. The discussion on the Venetian structural system, the urban trace and the architectural configuration is re-established, in a dialogue between its history and its contemporaneity. This is achieved starting from the digital models and virtual tours, with in-depth texts that integrate the information actions with respect to the qualities of the architectures and urban spaces, activated and consulted with the exploration of the model.