4236 Arch. Carlo Scarpa

Carlo Scarpa

Here is another very famous architect of the Veneto. Born in Venice in 1906, he didn't really get into his stride as an architect "who got important things built" until the late 1950s. Before that (there was the war, of course) he had been involved in exhibition design and town planning projects. One exhibition he arranged was of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, who clearly (when Scarpa got round to designing buildings) was a great influence on him. The Brion tomb (see below) is a miraculous amalgam of the best of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies Van der Rohe.

Many of his important buildings are in the Veneto. The Castelvecchio museum in Verona is his rebuild (the place was destroyed by bombs in the war), and though the collection is not terribly extensive the way it is displayed is magnificent. He even did some false perspective stuff with hedges - the tops of these hedges are not horizontal, but on a slope so that the appear much longer than the really are - like entasis on a Roman column. The statue of Cangrande (a famous mercenary) is positioned in a quite breathtaking way.
He also designed the interior of the head office of the Banca Popolare di Verona - and this is spectacular. He used the traditional stucco veneziano (very high gloss plaster, looks like abstract marble, in colours inspired by Rothko's paintings, often on curved walls)!! I saw a film of him visiting the site and really getting to grips with the technique - inevitably it was an ancient maestro weilding the plastering float - and Scarpa came over as the nicest, least arrogant, delightful, enthusiastic, wonderful man. I doubt that even the "open sesame" of sono architetto will get you into this building though - I sweet talked my way into a guided tour (minded by a machine gun touting guard!) but that was 25 years ago.

In Venice itself, his best work (IMO) is the garden of the Fondazione Querini Stampalia - only about 20m by 10m - and hopefully not too difficult to visit. He also did the Olivetti shop (which has probably since changed its name) in the Piazza San Marco in Venice.

Now we come to his capolavoro, which is the tomb for the family Brion. This is an important Venetian family who founded Brionvega - a firm which made televisions etc, generally designed by the top industrial designers, (and their products really do make Bang and Olufsen look like some crap Ikea turns out). If you don't think that concrete can be an elegant material, please visit Brion's tomb. It is located within the cemetery of San Vito d'Altivole, close to Treviso, and jumps through every elegant modern architectural hoop that one couldn't dream of in a cemetery. Fantastic - and the best thing about my visit there was that we didn't actually have this little village on our map - just got fairly near to it - made halting enquiries of a local contadino who knew that we had come to look at the pride of his village, and beamingly praised the wonderful Brion family and their wonderful architect and gave us precise directions!! Now I somehow don't think you would get that "sense of place" from some Brit hoodie.....