As part of an animated short movie project I´ve started I have to collect a lot of reference images of Venice, one thing I´ve noticed on many houses are this diagonal metal bars which seem to be about 1 meter long or less and are attached to the walls by the middle; I have no idea what purpose this serve, anyone knows?
Here are a couple examples: bellow the square windows on the top and between the first and second floor,
They’ve been there for a long time–there are rust streaks under them. My guess would be that they’re an attempt to stabilize the facades somehow with iron bars. Venice has a chronic problem with the capillary action of salt water eating away mortar, so it looks to me like they tried to tie the facades down with bars, fasten them to whatever’s behind them.
They are there to stabilize the facades and other external walls. You’ll notice they are always at floor level because there is a steel bar that runs through the house and bolts onto another brace on the opposite side of the building. Many buildings in my neighborhood have them, especially in the historic districts where it’s a major pain in the neck to get permission to tear down and rebuild historic buildings.
I should have guessed it, some premises are quite skewed there, this palazzo for example looks like it´s falling appart in slow motion. It does have one of those bars too.
