the example of Virtually Venice

"British Council UK commissioned this project for the Venice Architectural Biennale 04 and FRAC 07 - it celebrates the legendary story of Marco Polo’s meeting Kublai Khan. In these portrayals of how Khan might have imagined Venice, the city takes on aspects of the East and reconfigures itself in new architectural forms. This lagoon city of one hundred and eight majestic water harvesters (Fontuna Pozzo-Pozza) cooling its inhabitants by spraying water. Elsewhere lies an information lemon park where choreographed foreign languages textured the landscape (Giardini), a place of rest for the tired feet (San Michele), the cathedralesque Tower of Death with chandeliers of cage pigeon ready for the slaughter (San Marco) and a woven beach (Lido). An alien vessel (Par Xien Gou Hai) glides through the waters while conjuring a succession of animated windows, doors and balconies, as it extends its antennae to bridge one space to another" Studio 8 Architects . CJ Lim Professor of Architecture and Cultural Design, UCL Pro-Provost for North America,Director of Bartlett International Development, Design Tutor Unit 10

The power of narrative, The travels of Marco Polo, and the sole suggestion of Khan imagining the city with the eyes of someone who never has been in the East, what at the same time is made by an architect that is originally from the East, allowing him to use a epistemology of that culture to recreate a iconic city like Venice, show the potentialities of this project. But the development through so incredible drawings makes it one of the most innovative, interesting and well-developed project of Architecture through Narrative.