Italy's Mid Century Maverick

World-famous Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa countered the modernism of his era with work

Architecture is generally regarded as a fairly conservative profession, but the discipline has seen its fair share of mavericks who have pushed the envelope in building design. Almost a century ago, architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ushered in the modern era and set the standard for generations of architects. Today, building designers such as Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas and Will Alsop provide some of the most leading edge ideas. Fifty years ago, one of those architectural mavericks was Carlo Scarpa, a Venice-based practitioner who devised unique strategies for reconciling the new with the old, an important achievement for work in history-rich Italy.
Like many architects, Scarpa didn't really begin making his mark until his late 40s. In 1953, the Venetian architect began his restoration of the historic Palazzo Abatellis in Palermo, which was to become the national gallery of Sicily. Prior to this work, Scarpa had spent the better part of two decades demonstrating his deft creativity in his valued glass designs for renowned Murano-based glass manufacturer Venini. Beginning with the Palermo restoration project, however, Scarpa was already showing his individualism. His attention to light and shadow, intricate detail and architecture as narrative set him apart from the prevailing modernism of the mid 20th century.
"By the late 1950s, two architects - Louis Kahn in the United States and Carlo Scarpa in Italy - had begun to distance themselves decisively from the functionalist aesthetic and machine technology of the modern movement," wrote American architect and academic George Ranalli in conjunction with a Scarpa retrospective at Montreal's Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in 1999. "They commenced what was essentially an alternative discourse: establishing a dialogue with the history of architecture; returning to the idea of craft, construction method, and on-site invention as the ultimate creative acts in architecture; and moving into a new realm of thinking about interventions in the historic fabric. This recombination of history, craft and invention constituted a major contribution to the discipline of architecture".
One of Scarpa's most acclaimed works from his prolific mid-century period was his transformation of a 14th century Verona castle into that city's Museo di Castelvecchio. A courtyard features a contemporary garden with a Mondrian influence and a sculpture gallery features a medieval horse and rider statue sited by Scarpa to take full advantage of its expressiveness. Along with his museum work, Scarpa also designed commercial buildings such as the Verona headquarters of Banca Popolare and an Olivetti showroom in Venice. Homes for private clients included a villa in Udine which suggested Scarpa's fascination with the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Other influences on the Venetian architect included the Viennese Secessionist architects Josef Hoffmann and Alfred Loos (who, like Scarpa and Wright forged new links between old and new forms) as well as arts movements of the Orient. It was in Japan, unfortunately, where Scarpa died suddenly in 1978 at the age of 72. His acclaimed Brion cemetery near Treviso became the architect's own final resting place.
CCA founder Phyllis Lambert has noted, "Faced with the imperative of intervening in the historic fabric of Italian cities, Carlo Scarpa devised symbolic journeys through time and space: uncovering the various layers of a building's past, rediscovering the power of its strongest elements, transforming even its most banal accretions and returning the structure to a vital role in public life."

Publication Date: 2004-12-05
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=4681