Venice, Italy, summer 1982

‘ I do not think that there can be a more beautiful city in the world than Venice; nor one which is more totally constructed out of the signs of human habitation.  By which I mean this:  in Venice, you see everything, almost as if the outside of each building were in fact its inside.  Windows, shutters, balconies, doorways of all shapes and sizes – all mutations, one might say, rather than permutations; window-plants, climbing plants, telephone wires, street numbers, street names, shop signs and of course the inevitable washing, all packed together in these winding, labyrinthine streets and alleyways which flake and crumble into every fascinating shape and colour.  There is not one square inch of Venice that does not repay scrutiny.  There is not one centimetre of it that does not seem touched by the same unimaginably complex subtle and imponderable hand of time – as if the city shapes itself, and shapes itself eternally.  As if time and the city are one, the city in the never-ending process of signing itself into yet more intricate meaning.’

Journal, 20th August 1982

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