works in piazza San Marco, Venice
 

I have recently seen from a live webcam located at San Marco piazza, that some restoration (?), or other works and activities are taking place (is there a building site or what?). Does anyone know when will the works end? Because I'am visiting Venice late May and I will be dissapointed if this picture remains. Thanks.

It is likely to remain long past May. They are working on reinforcing the substructure of the Campanile.

I was there last May and it was going on than too.Really not that big of a deal as it is Venice afterall. For me nothing detracts from the magic of Venice. Maybe the way the camera is situated makes it look more invasive than it really is.

We were just there last week and unfortunately, first entered the piazza with the construction in our view. It looked daunting, but letsgo39 is right, it isn't that distracting once you get in the square.
--Annie

I think you should expect restoration/construction in Italy since there are so many amazing structures that need to be conserved. When I was in Venice the first time, the Torre dell'Orologio, the large clock tower in Piazza San Marco, was being repaired and was covered by large printed screens. When I was in Venice the last time (6 years later) it was still covered, but so was part of the Doge's Palace. There are so many other sites to focus on, I, personally, just try not to fixate on ones under restoration (and hope, one day, to seem them after completion).

I suggest that you do not visit Venice until all the restoration works are completed. The foundations of the Campanile are being restored, drainage works are proposed for the Piazza, the Fond. Nuove has construction works under way, and there is a big scaffold in the Frari.

Better to wait until all these works are completed.

Venice is big on campaniles, there are scads of them, and they occasionally collapse. The campanile in San Marco fell in 1902, the only casualty being the caretakers cat, and was rebuilt, dov'era e com'era, or “where it was, and as it was”. This possibly extended to the foundations, which are wooden soldier piles, and are now being restrained with titanium rods to stop the piles spreading. Sometimes repeating the designs of the past can be a problem, and they found a few years ago that the outer piles were starting to lean, the whole stone pile cap was growing. The titanium rods – which will see a lot of sea water – are being strain gauged so that growth can be monitored. The engineering here is amazing, especially when you consider that most of Venice is a only foot or so above the water table.

I have been to Venice a dozen times and I don't think there was ever NO construction going on in the piazza. For years different parts of the basilica facade were under scaffolding. In early 2006 it was the Torre dell'Orologio as well as the work around the campanile, which was still there when I returned in late 2007. It's always something . . .