ABSTRACT
Carlo Scarpa spent his entire life in the Veneto region of northern Italy, the land in which, in the sixteenth century, his great predecessor, Andre Palladio, built his remarkable works. Just as with Palladio, Scarpa’s buildings reveal a deep understanding of and response to the unique climate of the region. The luminous skies, the warm summers and temperate winters all help to shape the buildings that are presented in this essay. The addition to the Museo Canoviano at Possagno is an essay in light – as Scarpa declared, ‘I wish I could frame the blue of the sky’, in which he placed Canova’s serene white figures. At the Castelvecchio in Verona, the same Veneto sky transforms an ancient military structure into a magical setting for the display of art. Nearby the building for the Banca Popolare di Verona challenges to architectural and environmental conventions of the office building and in Venice, the project for Querini Stampala is a unique intervention in the fabric of the city to create an intimate urban environment.
