Evolved Cultural Districts in Eastern Veneto
But what exactly does ‘the cultural role of companies’ mean and how is it put into practice?
To understand this, Confindustria Veneto Est commissioned the aiku Centre of Ca’ Foscari to interpret the existing situation and design a future-oriented action model. Starting from Pier Luigi Sacco’s original intuition, the study, conducted between December 2022 and April 2023, thus identified ten Evolved Cultural Districts within the territory of Confindustria Veneto Est, locating the various manifestations of the company’s cultural heritage in physical space and looking at their potential synergy with the artistic heritage and the realities of the production and diffusion of cultural products.
This extends the concept of ‘industrial district’ with the desire to imagine forms of collaboration between companies, cultural venues and the territory, which are activators of a culture-driven local development process. The result, in addition to the research report that illustrates the approach and identifies the districts, is a searchable and updatable digital platform that allows various data processing and views and is at the same time an inspiration engine for new and more complex collaborations between business and culture.
The research has thus mapped more than 500 realities, dividing them into the two macro-groups of ‘corporate cultural heritage’ (117 among foundations, museums and business archives and museums of local productions) and ‘traditional cultural heritage’ (437 among museums, theatres, festivals, theatre and film companies).
The overlapping of the two sets made it possible to trace homogeneous areas with a particular density of this new idea of cultural production. It is precisely this geographical co-presence of business culture and ‘traditional’ culture that identifies 10 cultural districts as ‘evolved’, distributed as follows
- 3 in the foothills: Conegliano-Vittorio Veneto, Asolo-Montebelluna and Castelfranco-Cittadella
- 4 in urban areas: Treviso, Padua, Mestre and Venice
- 3 in rural or tourist areas: Eastern Veneto, Rovigo, Euganean Hills
The work photographs a developing situation, fixing on the map references destined to evolve and be enriched with the evolution of cultural enterprises and productions. It is a mapping in progress which, thanks to the digital platform, is open to extensions to other territories in the Veneto Region and predisposed to updates and additions.
The study was born with the desire to develop the potential for interaction and collaboration between business and culture, spurring the entire business system to systematise and share its historical and cultural heritage. The interactive tables are intended to serve as a useful tool for businesses in two directions: to emphasise the proximity of entrepreneurial activities now active in the enhancement of their heritage (which can serve as an example and guide for those who have not yet embarked on this path), and to show the potential for collaboration with realities pertaining to the traditional part of the cultural heritage present in the territory.
The research project was carried out under the coordination of Fabrizio Panozzo by Margherita De Luca, Mara Consolini, Leonardo Mozzato (for literature analysis, data collection and district mapping) and Andrea Santini (for data analysis and visualisation). Realised with the support of: Venice Rovigo Chamber of Commerce, Padua Chamber of Commerce, Treviso – Belluno | Dolomites Chamber of Commerce.