Carlo Scarpa

Scarpa studying the drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright in Venice, 1954

Carlo Scarpa (2 June 1906 – 28 November 1978) was an Italian architect and designer. He was influenced by the materials, landscape, and history of Venetian culture, as well as that of Japan. Scarpa translated his interests in history, regionalism, invention, and the techniques of the artist and craftsman into ingenious glass and furniture design.

Biography

Scarpa was born in Venice on 2 June 1906. Much of his early childhood was spent in Vicenza, where his family relocated when he was two years old. After his mother's death when he was 13, he moved with his father and brother back to Venice. Carlo attended the Academy of Fine Arts where he focused on architectural studies. After he graduated from the academy with the title of Professor of Architecture, he apprenticed with the architect Francesco Rinaldo. Scarpa married Rinaldo's niece, Nini Lazzari (Onorina Lazzari).

However, Scarpa refused to sit the pro forma professional exam administered by the Italian government after World War II. As a consequence, he was not permitted to practice architecture without associating with an architect. Hence, those who worked with him (clients, associates, craftspersons, etc.) called him "Professor", rather than "architect".

Castelvecchio Museum stairs by Scarpa

Scarpa's architecture is deeply sensitive to the passage of time, from seasons to history, rooted in a sensuous material imagination. He was Mario Botta's thesis adviser along with Giuseppe Mazzariol; the latter was the director of the Fondazione Querini Stampalia when Scarpa completed his renovation and garden for that institution. Scarpa taught drawing and interior decoration at the Istituto universitario di architettura di Venezia from the late 1940s until his death. While most of his built work is located in the Veneto region, he designed landscapes, gardens, and buildings for other regions of Italy as well as Canada, the United States, Saudi Arabia, France, and Switzerland. His name has 11 letters and this is used repeatedly in his architecture.

One of his last projects, the Villa Palazzetto in Monselice, left incomplete at the time of his death, was altered in October 2006 by his son Tobia. This work is one of Scarpa's most ambitious landscape and garden projects, the Brion Sanctuary notwithstanding. It was executed for Aldo Businaro, the representative for Cassina who was responsible for Scarpa's first trip to Japan. Businaro died in August 2006, a few months before the completion of the new stairs at the Villa Palazzetto, built to commemorate Scarpa's centenary.

In 1978, while in Sendai, Japan, Scarpa fell down a flight of concrete stairs. He died of his injuries after ten days in hospital. He is buried standing up and wrapped in linen sheets in the style of a medieval knight, in an isolated exterior corner of his L-shaped Brion tomb at San Vito d'Altivole in Veneto.

In 1984, the Italian composer Luigi Nono dedicated to Scarpa a composition for orchestra in micro-intervals, A Carlo Scarpa, Architetto, Ai suoi infiniti possibili.

Design career

Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona. Photo by Paolo Monti, 1982 (Fondo Paolo Monti, BEIC).

Scarpa was a designer as well as an architect. At the beginning of his career, he collaborated with glassmakers in Murano. He designed jars and chandeliers for MVM Cappellin & Co. and Venini. His designs for Venini have sold for high prices at auction, including a 1940 vase that sold at Christie's in 2012 for around $309,000, and another vase, found in a thrift store, which sold in 2023 for $107,100.

Furthermore, Scarpa joined the industrial design world in the 1960s after meeting Dino Gavina. Scarpa became the president of the eponymous company Gavina.

In 1968, after the founding of Studio Simon, Scarpa started to design industrial furniture.

He designed pieces for Simon and Bernini. The Doge table (1968) and the Cornaro sofa (1973) are the most famous.

Notable works

• Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, Italy
• Padiglione del libro d'arte, Giardini di Castello, La Biennale, Venice, 1950–1952
• Palazzo Abatellis: La Galleria Di Sicilia, Palermo, 1953–1954
• Palazzo Ca'Foscari, Venice, Italy, 1935–1956
• Venezuelan Pavilion, La Biennale, Venice, Italy, 1954–1956
• Veritti House, Udine, Italy, 1955–1961
• Museo Canova di Possagno, Italy, 1955–1957
• Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona, Italy, 1956–1964
• Negozio Olivetti, piazza S. Marco, Venezia, Italy, 1957–1958
• Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, 1961–1963
• Brion Tomb and Sanctuary, at San Vito d'Altivole, Italy, 1969–1978
• Banca Popolare di Verona, Italy, 1973–1978
• Restauración del Museo de Castelvecchio en Verona / Carlo Scarpa

Bibliography

• Beltramini, Guido; Zannier, Italo (2007). Carlo Scarpa: Architecture and Design. New York: Rizzoli.
• Crippa, Maria Antonietta. (1986). Loffi Randolin, Marina (ed.). "Carlo Scarpa: Theory, Design, Projects". Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
• Dal Co, Francesco; Mazzariol, Giuseppe (1984). "Carlo Scarpa: opera completa". Getty Search Gateway (in Italian). Milan: Electa.
• Dal Co, Francesco; Mazzariol, Giuseppe (1985). Carlo Scarpa: The Complete Works. Milan: Electa; New York: Rizzoli.
• Dal Co, Francesco (2009). To Construct, to Compose: Carlo Scarpa and the Villa Ottolenghi. Amsterdam: SUN.
• Guidi, Guido (2011). Carlo Scarpa's Tomba Brion. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz.
• Giunta, Santo (2020). Carlo Scarpa. A [curious] shaft of light, a golden standard, the hands and a face of a woman. Reflections on the design process and layout of Palazzo Abatellis 1953–1954. Foreword by Richard Murphy; Afterword by Giampiero Bosoni, Marsilio, Venice, ISBN 978-88-297-0654-9.
• Los, Sergio (1967). "Carlo Scarpa, architetto poeta". Getty Search Gateway (in Italian). London: RIBA.
• Los, Sergio (1995). "Carlo Scarpa : guida all'architettura" (in Italian). Venice: Arsenale.
• Los, Sergio (2009). Carlo Scarpa: 1906–1978: A Poet of Architecture. Taschen. ISBN 978-3822821121.
• McCarter, Robert (2013). Carlo Scarpa. London: Phaidon Press. (2nd edition, 2017)
• Olsberg, Nicholas; Ranalli, George; Polano, Sergio; Di Lietio, Alba; Freidman, Mildred; Bedard, Jean-Francois; Guidi, Guido (1999). Carlo Scarpa, Architect: Intervening with History (1st ed.). New York: Canadian Centre For Architecture: Monacelli Press. p. 256. ISBN 1580930352.
• Schultz, Anne-Catrin (2007). Carlo Scarpa: Layers. Stuttgart: Edition Axel Menges.
• Semi, Franca (2010). A Lezione con Carlo Scarpa (in Italian). Venice: Cicero. ISBN 9788889632260.
• Sonego, Carla (1995). Carlo Scarpa. Gli anni della formazione. Venice: IUAV, (unpublished thesis, Professor Marco De Michelis, supervisor). (in Italian)

External links

• Digital Archive of Carlo Scarpa
• Carlo Scarpa at archINFORM