1956-1973
Carlo Scarpa: Intervening with History


+
Foundation Querini Stampalia
Castelvecchio
Brion Vega Tomb
+
craftsmanship
materiality
investigation through drawing
working on every component
symmetry
articulated geometrical relationships
intervening with existing historical fabric
+


Throughout his work, Carlo Scarpa has been meticulous with every detail and the smallest of design elements, their finishes, material choices and joining points. He used drawing to work and rework his designs over and over again until the final idea has filtrated through.

His drawings are informative of the long process he had to go through, and it does reverberate with my method of working - pencil on paper is the medium I am most comfortable in. Many ideas are born from and develop through scribbles in my sketchbook. However, my platform is all about material experiments, thats how projects got kickstarted at the beginning of the year. Only through making you come across certain material qualities or project possibilities that you wouldn't have imagined otherwise. But I sometimes feel that my imagination runs faster than my hands can craft it into at least a sketch model, so thats when the drawing gets my preference.


I find Scarpa's material choices very interesting, especially in Brion Vega tomb, where fascinating wood patterns meet metal against concrete, lined with water and vegetation:

The plasticity and serenity into which Scarpa works the concrete, remind me of Tadao Ando's architecture:

Brion Vega

Tadao Ando's Church of Light

Nonetheless, I find Ando's work much more refined, elegant and spatially rewarding. In Brion Vega I sometimes feel that spaces are cluttered with detail and decoration, almost a sort of Baroque of Modernism.

I have to admit though, most of the details are beautiful and carefully designed, and the openings are thoughtfully placed to orchestrate an architectural journey, but somehow they do not work together.  Each element craves for attention and tries to overwhelm the other.

It's almost as if Carlo Scarpa wanted to show off numerous design exercises that he very cleverly managed to solve. 
However, it reminds me more of ornamented Art Nouveau than of purist Modernism.

+

In design, I believe hierarchy is very important - hierarchy of spaces, hierarchy of decoration elements, hierarchy of images versus text, hierarchy of colours, hierarchy of fuctions, hierarchy of potential users, etc. It may be direct, chronological, sequential, it can be a narrative, a process, etc. or completely the opposite. I think in Brion Vega, especially its interiors, it is sometimes lost.