“Venice Gateway” project is a complex including Resort, Congress Centre and Water Terminal, located inside the airport area Marco Polo in Venezia – Tessera. In the airport, involved in a larger expansion plan, a new Terminal was already built while new runways, infrastructures and car-parks will be soon completed for meeting the needs of a modern air connection, linking every year millions of visitors to the historical water city.
At the moment the hotels in Venice are located far from the airport and are most of the times fully booked. Frank O. Gehry was asked to include accommodation services for the visitors inside the Terminal Boat preliminary project, among them hotel rooms, convention hall and conference rooms, offices, retail shops and other related resources.
The exposition and congressional centre was studied as a regular-sized building made of metal, glass and plaster. The main hall is covered by a large metal roof in accordance with the existing airport buildings and is the background to passageways and to the smaller conference rooms overlooking the new square. It is a flexible space, suitable for hosting 2400 people in a single convention room, or up to 1000-people banquets.
