ABSTRACT
Avoiding both poles, which tended to be associated with political patronage from the main parties, Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) struck an independent pose. This was partly due to his education which distinguished him from his contemporaries. He did not attend architectural school, but the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, where he studied sculpture and painting. He then developed an interest in architecture, and worked while still a student for various architectural offices. Later he was even a site manager on construction sites. In such experiences, before the commencement of his own architectural work, we see the grounding of Scarpa’s unique language: a lack of rigid compositional orthodoxy, a delight in the variation of planar surfaces and textures, and a famously lively relationship with the craftsman. He was not excessively precious about his drawings, indeed alterations were made to them right up to the moment of construction; but those that survive show a constantly inventive and exploratory sculptural and spatial sense.
