Università Iuav di Venezia

Architecture school in Venice, Italy

Iuav University of Venice is a university in Venice, Italy. It was founded in 1926 as the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia as one of the first Architecture schools in Italy. The university currently offers several undergraduate, graduate and higher education courses in Architecture, Urban Planning, Fashion, Arts, and Design. It is a design themed university focusing on the teaching, research, and practice of the design of living spaces and environments (buildings, cities, landscapes and territory) and in the design of everyday use objects, of fashion and of graphics. It has also a more recent courses in visual arts, theatre and performing arts, and multimedia events.

Tolentini is the Headquarters of Università Iuav di Venezia. The Tolentini building complex is located near Piazzale Roma and comprises the Tolentini church convent complex and a few other neighbouring areas. In 1958, the Italian State, owner of the former convent, gave Iuav access to the building began construction work. The renovations of the whole complex took place between 1960 and 1965, project and work direction by the architect Daniele Calabi and the engineer Mario Bacci. In 1985, the entrance area was transformed according to a project by Carlo Scarpa, work direction by architect Sergio Los, and structural calculation by the engineer Carlo Maschietto. Palazzo Badoer In 1974, Iuav also bought the palace belonging to the Santa Caterina Sisters of Charity of Nevers. Construction work and adaptation of the palace to Department of Architecture began in April 1978. Palazzo Badoer has been the home to the Iuav School of Doctorate Studies since 2008. Cotonificio veneziano History was inaugurated in 1883. In the previous year, a cotton spinning and production company was set up in Venice. Partially destroyed by a fire in 1916, the cotton mill (cotonificio) was rebuilt. About a thousand workers worked here: it remained operative until 1960, and then was abandoned for thirty years before restoration in the 1990s. Restored by the Venetian architecture studio of Gino Valle, the main building now houses an important part of the university: classrooms, the “Gino Valle” exhibit space, the “Archivio Progetti” (which includes a study room with nine consultation seats), the exhibition hall, a main office and a deposit. The exhibition room is permanently set up with an exhibition of models belonging to the collection of the “Archivio”, and it hosts temporary exhibits that display original documents from the archive funds. It is now the seat of “Archivio Progetti”, ArTec Archives on Techniques and Materials for Architecture and Industrial Design, infrastructure management, auditorium, “Gino Valle” exhibit space, Gradoni room, teaching activities. Ca' Tron is the seat of exhibition spaces, and Ir. Ide research infrastructure. Was purchased by Iuav in 1972, and restored on a project by Architect L. Bellemo. Consolidation work, space reorganization, and space recovery were carried out for the new functions of the building. Two large salons, on the ground floor and on the first floor, offer students spaces to gather together. The palazzo is an exhibition venue for artistic events, available for both university and external users. Mestre is the seat of LabSCo Construction Sciences Lab, FisTec Environmental Engineering Physics Lab. The headquarters of the Construction Sciences Lab, Environmental Engineering Physics Lab and TerraLab for Earth Sciences, inaugurated in 2003, is located in Mestre, on an area granted by the municipality to Venetian universities for the construction of a scientific development pole. The central core of the building consists of a “contrast structure” – a reinforced concrete grid of beams, developing underground – and a "bridge structure”, supported by two series of pillars. The building was conceived as a protection shell, lowered from above, for the virtually pre existent central core. The interior space is modulated by natural light, penetrating from below and from above. Light enters from below – through a perimeter glazed window between the shell structure and the ground; and from above – through a series of smaller skylights crowning the greater central one. A vertical axis ideally connects the hypogeum structure to the light box of the large skylight, creating a symbolic space with industrial features. The two halves of the roof terrace, connected by an outer passage, define a cantilevered garden. The shell of the building is covered in a marble slab finishing. The skylights are lined with quartz zinc plates. A slight depression in the ground isolates the area of the new laboratory: this tank is made of Opus signinum, mixing scales from the same marble of the façade in the concrete mixture. Campo della Lana is the seat of administration office, infrastructure management, financial and human resources offices, student service offices, another building is Casa del gondolier seat of Lama – laboratory for the analysis of antique materials while Magazzino 6 & Magazzino 7, Masieri, and Terese are seats of teaching activities.

The University has a library dedicated to architecture and other design disciplines in Italy. The Iuav library, located in Tolentini, is open to institutional users and, subject to authorization, also to the external public. It houses a wide and rare collection of volumes, databases and journals especially focusing on architecture, urban planning and the arts. For some years collections on design, fashion and theatre have been growing. Specific keynotes, handbooks and general publications to support the teaching of the University are available. Moreover, the library holdings include dissertations (since 1983), and some valuable items: the Daniela Palazzoli Special Collection; the Italo Zannier Special Collection, a remarkable collection of books and journals on the history of photography, owned by the popular photographer and critic, and the personal collections of the architects Mario Labò, Giovanni Sardi and Giorgio Wenter Marini, which include some antique books and publications of the first half of the 20th century, also it holds a considerable range of international magazines and books and is open till late evening. The Università Iuav di Venezia Library System promotes cooperation and projects which aim to improve and develop the dissemination of information on the subjects of Architecture and Urban Planning, with agreements and membership of The National Library Service of Italy (Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale– SBN), Archinet and Urbandata Associations and the University of Padua and the Ca' Foscari University of Venice phaidra Library System. Iuav Library produces the most important Italian Architecture and Urban Planning Periodical Index in cooperation with the Italian Association of Architecture Libraries (Coordinamento Nazionale Biblioteche di Architettura CNBA). More than 7.000 new records are added to the database every year. This catalogue and other bibliographic and full text databases are also accessible to Iuav users from outside the University network with user ID. The discovery tool primo. iuav. it provides access to all the information resources mentioned above, as well as to the Projects Archive, the Map Collection and the Slide Collection catalogues and digitalized images.

Foremost experts in the fields of architecture, planning, design and arts as well as artists are part of the university's history, including: Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Frank Lloyd Wright, Carlo Scarpa, Carlo Aymonino, Manfredo Tafuri, Vittorio Gregotti, Gino Valle, Aldo Rossi, Giovanni Astengo, Giancarlo De Carlo, Tadao Ando and Richard Serra. Iuav has established agreements with important Italian and foreign cultural institutions, museums and universities such as La Biennale di Venezia, Teatro La Fenice, Palazzo Grassi, Musei Civici Veneziani, Triennale di Milano, Parsons School of Design, MIT, Illinois Institute of Technology, UNSW Sydney and Tongji University. Iuav students are involved with all of these institutions on a regular basis. As of 2020 and According to QS World University Ranking, Università Iuav di Venezia is among the best 100 universities around the world in the field of Architecture, it gained around hundred position going from position 151 200 (2018) to that of 51 100 (2019 & 2020). An improvement of about 100 positions that places Iuav architecture courses among the best in the world and largely first in Italy for growth intensity. Since 2019, Iuav is among the best 150 universities around the world in the field of Art & Design on the report of QS World University Ranking for best Art & Design universities for the year 2019 & 2020. Also, as one of the finest architecture universities in Europe, it was listed in Domus Magazine's Guide to Europe's Top 100 Schools of Architecture and Design selected across Europe. Nationally, according to La Repubblica CENSIS University Rankings (2017) Iuav was ranked 2nd after Polytechnic University of Milan(PoliMi) and followed by Polytechnic University of Turin(PoliTo) according to the classification and evaluation parameters of The Italian polytechnics. While in the 2020 La Repubblica CENSIS ranking for Best Architecture Faculty 2019 2020 for the three year degree courses, the Iuav (110 points) was in first place – first also in terms of career progression and international relations – followed by the University of Sassari (104.5 points) and Camerino (99.5 points). The Polytechnic of Turin and Milan are in fifth and sixth place respectively (95 and 94 points).