Restoration of Venice's Royal Gardens wins Europa Nostra 2023 award

The Venice Royal Gardens restoration and conservation project has been awarded the European Cultural Heritage Prize / Europa Nostra Award 2023, an award established by the European Commission in 2002 with the aim of celebrating and promoting the multiple values that natural and cultural heritage has for society, the economy and the environment in Europe.

The complex restoration work of the Giardini Reali, promoted and carried out by Venice Gardens Foundation under the direction of President Adele Re Rebaudengo and supported by Generali as main partner, has made it possible to bring the Gardens back to life, which reopened to the public on December 17, 2019. Dating back to the Napoleonic era, the Gardens were in a serious state of neglect, and the intervention made it possible not only to restore their architectural link to St. Mark’s Square, but also to make them accessible to all.

“St. Mark’s Square and the Marciana area in general represent a symbolic place known all over the world. Assicurazioni Generali supported as the sole partner the restoration of the Giardini Reali wanted by the Venice Gardens Foundation because this project gave back to the city and to those who visit it an oasis of beauty and reflection immersed in greenery,” said Simone Bemporad, director of Communications and Institutional Affairs at Assicurazioni Generali and vice president of The Human Safety Net foundation. “But it has also done so because there is a common thread that leads from water, the city’s symbolic element, to St. Mark’s, where the Procuratie Vecchie-home to The Human Safety Net and unmistakable backdrop to the square-open the door to a journey that affects us all: expressing one’s full potential.”

The complex intervention supported by Generali in theMarciana area has also enabled a complex botanical restoration and enhancement of the Giardini Reali. What concerned the gardens was a conservative intervention in terms of design and architecture, deliberately respectful of the historical evolution that has connoted the site and consistent with the historic nineteenth-century design, but also innovative and experimental from a botanical point of view, thanks to the work of landscape architect Paolo Pejrone.

The Royal Gardens are now cared for and preserved with specific programs, a synthesis of ancient knowledge and new techniques aimed at sustainable and responsible management without the use of synthetic chemicals, with great attention to the conservation of natural resources, reuse, recycling and enhancement of existing physical elements. Taking up the designs of architects Carlo Aymonino and Gabriella Barbini, the architectural restoration and rehabilitation of the Greenhouse was carried out by architect Alberto Torsello. Inside it is home to The Human Garden, which hosts the artistic, cultural and research activities promoted and supported by Venice Gardens Foundation. It is also home to the Archivio delle Radici installation, a xylotheque of different woods from the countries in which The Human Safety Net operates. The restoration also involved the historic drawbridge, which anciently connected the Giardini Reali to the Procuratie Nuove and St. Mark’s Square, with the intention, in the future, of restoring the promenade from the lagoon through the gardens to the Correr Museum reopening the renewed dialogue with St. Mark’s Square and the Marciana area.

Image: Top view of the Giardini Reali. Photo by Emilio Bottazzi.

Restoration of Venice's Royal Gardens wins Europa Nostra 2023 award

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