"It’s an exceptional bridge, and they should keep it like this. Beauty must save the world"/"We can’t always do poetry. We must give security"/"A Venetian would have never built such nonsense"/"That is not a bridge."

Quotes from "Venice Gets a Grip on a Star Architect’s Slippery Bridge/The city will replace the glass on Santiago Calatrava’s footbridge across the Grand Canal with stone after too many pedestrians fell" (NYT). 

Calatrava is not a Venetian. He was born in Spain. Apparently, there's a notion that Venetians do not design impractical — dangerous? — things.

According to one person who fell — "like a bag of potatoes" — Calatrava "ruined the most beautiful years of my old age."