Evocations of a Historical Night in Venice

Venice is a big dream, at once ineffably meaningful and yet still intangible; not merely to the authors of this paper but to many others as well. Why? Not only are we drawn by its mystery and romance; Venice, this otherworldly city, unfolds an architectural nocturne that in many ways makes history. In this paper, we shall describe a very special architecture on a very special night in the “City of Cities” - the night being a late summer night in September 2006, and the architecture being a small gleaming pavilion by the name of NoRA. Partially incapacitating our eyes, the evocations of this night are unfolded by NoRA, an example of how to understand the taste, smell, sound and feeling of the historical city as a point of departure for learning about the contemporary city and importantly; Architecture’s Nocturne.