Warwick Venice Centre

An excellent example of universities working together.

In 2023, Warwick reopened its operations in Venice. The new Warwick Venice Centre, overlooking the Grand Canal, is housed within the 17th Century Palazzo Guistinian Lolin and provides a year-round centre for seminars, workshops, conferences, and taught modules.

Warwick has taught students in Venice since the 1960s and still offers History and History of Art students the chance to spend a term in Venice. Our new premises confirm our desire to further develop this student offering and to encourage Warwick academics to build collaborations with the important cultural, civic, and commercial institutions in Venice, including with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, our partner in the EUTOPIA alliance.

The new location of the Warwick Venice Centre places it within short walking distance of Ca’ Foscari’s campus in the heart of the city. This close proximity will help support activities between Warwick and Ca’Foscari across a range of disciplines, exemplified by recent cross-faculty collaborations between Science, Engineering and Medicine (Warwick) and Humanities (Ca’Foscari).

Academics from Warwick Manufacturing Group’s Centre for Imaging, Metrology, and Additive Technology are working with historians from Ca’ Foscari to scan and analyse artefacts from ancient Roman and pre-Roman Venice. This project, working across universities and academic disciplines, allows ancient artefacts to be reproduced using 3D printing or VR technology. This has the potential to revolutionise how people experience historical items, including in museums.

Professor Mark Williams, head of the Centre for imaging, Metrology and Additive Technology (CiMAT) at WMG commented: “This is an excellent example of universities working together, including across the arts and sciences. This scanning technology has truly exciting possibilities, including for the future of historical learning and we were delighted to be able to assist our Venetian colleagues in bringing a small section of their history to life”.

Associate Professor Lorenzo Calvelli, a historian at Ca’ Foscari University, said: “It has been excellent to meet and collaborate with colleagues, and I am very excited about our future plans to dive deeper into the treasure trove of artefacts that are from Warwick, a waiting for us in Altinum”.

Warwick is keen to explore how we can utilise the Warwick Venice Centre for further collaborative activities with our EUTOPIA partners. Additionally, the space can be booked by EUTOPIA partners for their own meetings, workshops, taught activities, and conferences.

Enquiries can be made to WarwickInEurope@warwick.ac.uk, with further guidance available from Warwick staff based in Venice. For more information on available spaces and booking, please see https://warwick.ac.uk/venice.