Architect (Venice, 1944). In 1968 he graduated with an architecture degree in Venice, he then became professor of “City and Territory Analysis” at the IUAV (Architecture University of Venice). He was Visiting Professor at the Institut Francais D’Urbanism - Paris VIII in 1988. From 1991 to 2006, he has been rector of the IUAV where he was elected president of the Conference of Rectors of the Architecture department. Commissioner of the VI Biennale of Venice between 1994 and 1996. He has been a member of the board of directors of the Triennale in Milan. Currently, he is a member of the board of directors of Fondazione Venezia.

What’s your relationship with Venice?

MF: I was born in Venice, but I see myself as an adopted citizen since I have chosen to remain in this city because I deeply love it experiencing everyday the city in wonder, as someone who sees it for the first time. I love Venice’s materials, the beauty of its stones and of the waters flowing through it; but I also adore its immaterial side: Venice is a feeling, a state of mind.

Avoiding commonplaces, what’s so unique about this city?

MF: Venice is the only city in the world that can be walked through entirely on foot, or on boat, being constantly close to other people that walk through it just like you do, for reasons that you’ll never know. Of course, you walk through Venice to go somewhere to do something, but that ‘walking’is an adventure in itself: it is very similar to an initiation journey, whose essence is to be found in its development rather than in its destination. This is why Venice is also the city of chance, walking through its calli, lucky encounters can take place, unexpected stories can begin, other stories can end and everything is constantly moving. Venice itself is constantly renewed, still remaining the same: the light shining through it, its colours, its atmosphere are everchanging, hour after hour, day by day. Venice is a city that is constantly revealed, anew. Venice is also the ambiguous city. A perfect fusion of East and West, sea-city from which the sea can not be seen; water-city more than sea-city, it is crossed by a network of channels that rarely follow the road network with a few exceptions: Zattere, Riva degli Schiavoni, Fondamenta Nove. San Marco square with Palazzo Ducale dominates the basin and the lagoon but the biggest part of the city is projected towards its inside, never looking at the vast stretch of water in which it is bathed.

Would you suggest someone to come live in Venice?

MF: This is a suggestion that cannot be given as the decision to live in Venice is never entirely due to rational reasons. Either you love Venice, and then you will have no choice but to live here, or you hate it, and no advise will ever convince you. Personally, I couldn’t live anywhere else, I’m perfectly aware of the fact that Venice is a city that you constantly have to leave behind and far away, so that you can then come back and live it fully. I couldn’t live anywhere else for a long time, but I couldn’t give any advise about this matter as Venice is a city in which one can live only attuning to it, to its time, its rules. In this sense Venice is a ‘chosen’ city, a city of chosen people. Not everybody is in tune with it. Most of the millions of tourists than every year fleetingly pass through the city, living it just as a postcard, are people that don’t attune with it, they’re not meaningful for Venice just like Venice is meaningless for them. People who choose to live in Venice, though the discomforts of a city that’s losing its essential services, who doesn’t allow you to have your car parked close to your house and that entails a life cost considerably higher than the one you find on the mainland, always do it under an emotional drive and not following reason. If you had to give a tip to someone visiting Venice for the first time, what would you tell them?

MF: I would tell them to start by visiting the market of Rialto, obviously in the morning (possibly on Saturday, excluding Mondays) to see a very ‘lively’ part of the city, also being sure not to miss the Bacari (typical Venetian bars) crowding the area. After crossing the Canal Grande at Santa Sofia with a special gondola connecting one side of the canal with the other, another stop at the Vedova to have something to eat and then a walk around the streets of Cannaregio, until the Ghetto area, or in the streets near Castello, down to the Arsenale. I would save San Marco square for last, it should be seen in the light of the early dawn or in the deep darkness of the late night: empty, with no one around, when even the pigeons are asleep. It’s magnificent.