Timber roof structures of the "Arsenale" of Venice

The characteristics of the buildings that form the “Arsenale” obviously respond to the specific function of the site, i.e. the strategic production of commercial and war ships as it developed from the early 13th to the early 20th century. In particular, between the second half of 14th and the second half of 16th century, the span of the timber roofs continuously increased, according to the increasing dimensions of the ships. As the roofs became part of the “industrial machine” required by a sophisticated and specialized production process, also the applied live loads increased. The characteristics of the roofs correspondingly became more and more complex. The impression is that very “clever tricks”, subsequently lost when the construction became a “science” instead of a “skill”- permitted to counteract the weaker points of the historic timber truss structures – relatively high deformability, lack of redundancy that made them vulnerable to easy to occur joint deterioration – that could have jeopardized the efficiency of such a strategically vital “industrial” site of the Venice Republic.