"The Consumed City: Rethinking Urban Tourism in Venice through Big Data"

[Exhibited at Palazzo Mora from May 20, 2023 to November 26, 2023, during the 18th Biennale d'Architettura di Venezia, at the "Time Space Existence" exhibition curated by the European Cultural Centre in Venice]

TEAM

Project Curator: Carmelo Ignaccolo

Scientific Supervision: Sarah Williams

Researchers: Emily Levenson, Melody Phu, Leo Saenger, Yuke Zheng

Digital animation designer: Ting Zhang

Exhibition Design Assistant: Dila Ozberkman

DESCRIPTION

The strain of mass tourism on historic destinations like Venice has generated a growing debate about a city's responsibility to share its cultural heritage while protecting its residents. Spatial data, however, is often underutilized to understand the complex relationship between the activities of city dwellers and those of tourists.

Through maps and animated visualizations, "The Consumed City" narrates a spatial investigation of tourism in Venice, employing data from Airbnb, Tripadvisor, and Google Maps. The project presents maps and big data analytics to showcase the complexity of tourism dynamics in the lagoon city. "The Consumed City" is a prototype for the potential use of these tools to advance place-specific policies in "consumed" cities.

SPONSORS

The project is sponsored by CAMIT and the DUSP’s Bemis Fund, generously provided by the Dean of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning; moreover, it was further supported by the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

[An early version of this work appeared in the digital exhibition "Venice Masked," published online in 2021]