New York is a myth city itself. Although there are a lot of similarities between Venice and Manhattan, it is not called “Venice of America”, it is a mythic city on its own.
As Stoppani (2011) argues:
Manhattan and Venice are often associated in discourses on the city, across disciplines and chronology. Unique, dense, vertical, influential, mythical, open: the attributes of the two cities blend their bodies and their images in the association. This is what the city is: not just a set of physical, economical, political, geographical and organizational relations, but also the irrational elements that define its image and perception. The making of the physical city and the construction of its idea (or myth) proceed in parallel. Architecture can thus be redefined as a spatial practice that affects the physical environment but is also informed by the constructs of narrative, legislation, social mores, and by the spatial investigations performed in the visual arts.
The Met Life Tower at 1 Madison Av. sparked my interest.
The tower was inspired by St Mark’s Campanile, it features four clock faces, four bells, and lighted beacons at its top. Designed by the architectural firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, it was erected between 1905 and 1909. It was the tallest building in the world until 1913.
The fall of the St. Mark’s Campanile in 1902 and the following reconstruction com’era e dov’era (Lorenzetti, 1974) (how it was, where it was) makes it younger than the Met Life Tower. Thy inspired-by building is more original that the original one?
The corresponding place in Venice that I choose is the Piazzetta San Marco, between the two columns and the Doge’s Palace, in front of St. Mark’s basin. At the moment a big part of the square is scaffolded due to archeological surveys.
References
Lorenzetti, G. (1974). Venezia e il suo estuario, “Il campanile”, LINT. 142 – 143
Stoppani, T. (2011). Paradigm Islands: Manhattan and Venice: discourses on architecture and the city. Routledge.