Mr Dario Franceschini, Italian Minister of the Heritage and Cultural Activities

     

  Since August 2014 the World Heritage [WH] Office in Paris and UNESCO Office at the Ministry had been asked on two occasions to state the impacts of two projects authorized by the local Municipality of Vicenza to the WH property (“City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto”, 1994-196, criteria i, ii).

  The first one is a huge multifunctional building, unfortunately almost built, facing the two regional rivers, located a few steps from the Palladian Villa La Rotonda and Villa Valmarana ai Nani with its marvellous Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo’s frescoes (1757).

 The second one is represented by the approval of a feasibility study of the high-speed railway (TAV/TAC) linking Verona to Padua and crossing Vicenza’s central district. The study will be presented and approved during the Town Court Assembly scheduled on next January 12th, 2015. 

  The high-speed railway (TAV/TAC) project, a result of governmental agreements, is made by a large number of works, part of which are considered “complementary” (such as two railway stations, roads, bridges, parking lots, tunnel and local transportation) and these include very dangerous interventions which will damage forever the Palladian cultural landscape.

 The most dangerous among these works will be a catastrophic tunnel (of 14 mt. wide and 17 mt. high, 1.150 mt long) crossing from west to east the Monte Berico hill, which faces the historical centre. In particular, the east gate of the tunnel will be placed right under the Villa Valmarana ai Nani, putting the XVII century building and its irreplaceable Tiepolo’s frescoes at great risk, and potentially destroying forever this critical piece of Italy’s unique cultural landscape. This ensemble of Palladian villas with their surrounding landscapes of great rural beauty and the aesthetic and unimpaired visual linkages of the hill to the Bacchiglione River, once the main waterway from Venice to the inner land, are vital elements on the cultural continuum of world heritage.

  It is regrettable that, with this project supported and promoted by the most important local institutions, among these the Municipality of Vicenza, the international agreement signed at the time of the WH property recognition (1994 and 1996) to be recurred as the operative management procedures state, will be violated. In addition to this, the general public have not had any opportunity to discuss the utility and need for these works, which will destroy the original historical urban fabric and irreplaceable cultural assets of Vicenza, damaging forever the WH property.

  The decision concerning the project gives rise to serious concerns about the safeguarding of the WH property. For this reason we encourage corrective action and ask:

1. to stop the main project with its complementary works as a consequence of the violation of the 172 paragraph of the "Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention" (WHC.13/01 July 2013)

2. and set up an international committee of experts with the mandate for the Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA), as stated by the Guidance on Heritage Impact Assessment for Cultural World Heritage Properties (ICOMOS, 2011). 

 

 First subscribers:

Francesca Leder, University of Ferrara (petition promoter)

Phyllis Andersen, Boston Architectural College.

Oliva Bina, Universidade de Lisboa

Charles Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, Cultural Landscape Foundation

Peter Bosselman, University of California at Berleley

Paolo Ceccarelli, Unesco Chair, University of Ferrara

Donatella Calabi, Istituto Universitario di Architettura Venezia (IUAV)

Gianfranco Franz, University of Ferrara

Francesca Frassoldati, South China University, Guangzhou

Luis Alberto Rueda Guzmán, Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverría, CUJAE, Cuba

Arleyn A. Levee, Hon. ASLA,

Tunney Lee, Massachussets Institute of Technology

Carlos Llop Torne, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)

Paolo Maddalena, Emeritus judge of Italian Constitutional Court

Claudio Forte Maiolino, Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná, Brazil

Corinna Morandi, Politecnic of Milan

Maria da Graca Moreira, Universidade de Lisboa

Yodan Rofe, Ben-Gurion University of  the Negev

Nancy Valente, Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná, Brazil

Francesco Vallerani, University of Venice

Rabindra Vasavada, Professor/Architect, Ahmedabad India

Giulio Verdini, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University