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Opus 22Carlo Scarpa, Museo Canoviano, PossagnoWith an introduction by Stefan Buzas and Judith Carmel-Arthur andphotographs by Richard Bryant. 60 pp. with 50 ill. in b & w and colour,280 x 300 mm, hard-cover, EnglishISBN 978-3-930698-22-6Euro 36.00, £ 24.00, US $ 42.00, $A 68.00

In a letter from London, dated 9 November 1815, Antonio Canovawrote: »... Here I am in London, dear and best friend, a wonderfulcity. ... I have seen the marbles arriving from Greece. Of the basreliefswe had some ideas from engravings, but of the full colossal figures, inwhich an artist can display his whole power and science, we haveknown nothing. ... The figures of Phidias are all real and living flesh,that is to say are beautiful nature itself.«

With his admiring words for the famous Elgin Marbles Canova, oneof the last great artists embodying the grandiose heritage of the clas-sical world, gave at the same time an appropriate description of hisown artistic aims.

It was his half-brother who decided to assemble most of Canova’splaster originals and to place them in a museum he had built in thegarden of his brother’s home in Possagno, a small village north of Ven-ice, where the artist saw the light of day on 1 November 1757. This ba-silica-like building erected in 1836 now holds the great majority of Ca-nova’s compositions.

To commemorate the bicentenary of his birth, the Venetian author-ities decided to have an extension added to the overcrowded basilica,and they commissioned the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa for thisdelicate task. Scarpa composed a small, but highly articulated build-ing that is in a strong contrast to the neo-Classical, monumental basil-ica.

The subtly designed sequence of spaces is unique even amongScarpa’s so many extraordinary museum interiors as the architectwas here in the rare position to compose the spaces as well as theplacings of the exhibits. The placing of the sources of natural lightwhich infuses the plaster surfaces with the softness of real life is in it-self a rare achievement and it took an equally rare photographer torecord such symphonies in white in all their magic.

Stefan Buzas was an architect who has studied the work of Scarpafor many years. He was a member of the Faculty of Royal Designers forIndustry of the Royal Society of Arts in London. Judith Carmel-Arthur isan American-born art and design historian. She has degrees in fine artfrom California State University Humboldt, in architectural history fromSouthern Illinois University, in history of art from the Courtauld Institute,University of London, and a Ph. D. in design history from Kingston Uni-versity. Richard Bryant is one of the best-known architectural photogra-phers, working all over the world. He is the only photographer with anhonorary fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

2nd, revised edition

In a letter from London, dated 9 November 1815, An-tonio Canova wrote: »... Here I am in London, dearand best friend, a wonderful city. ... I have seen themarbles arriving from Greece. Of the basreliefs wehad some ideas from engravings, but of the full colos-sal figures, in which an artist can display his wholepower and science, we have known nothing. ... Thefigures of Phidias are all real and living flesh, that isto say are beautiful nature itself.«

With his admiring words for the famous Elgin Mar-bles Canova, one of the last great artists embodyingthe grandiose heritage of the classical world, gave atthe same time an appropriate description of his ownartistic aims.

It was his half-brother who decided to assemblemost of Canova’s plaster originals and to place themin a museum he had built in the garden of his broth-er’s home in Possagno, a small village north of Ven-ice, where the artist saw the light of day on 1 Novem-ber 1757. This basilica-like building erected in 1836now holds the great majority of Canova’s composi-tions.

To commemorate the bicentenary of his birth, theVenetian authorities decided to have an extensionadded to the overcrowded basilica, and they com-missioned the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa for thisdelicate task. Scarpa composed a small, but highlyarticulated building that is in a strong contrast to theNeoclassical, monumental basilica.

The subtly designed sequence of spaces is uniqueeven among Scarpa’s so many extraordinary museuminteriors as the architect was here in the rare positionto compose the spaces as well as the placings of theexhibits. The placing of the sources of natural lightwhich infuses the plaster surfaces with the softnessof real life is in itself a rare achievement and it took anequally rare photographer to record such symphoniesin white in all their magic.

The late Stefan Buzas was an architect who hasstudied the work of Scarpa for many years. He was amember of the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industryof the Royal Society of Arts in London. Judith Carmel-Arthur took her degree in architectural history, andsubsequently studied at the Courtauld Institute andWarburg Institute (University of London). She is a lec-turer in design and architectural history at KingstonUniversity and the University of Southampton, and ispresently completing her PhD in the history of design.Richard Bryant is one of the best-known architecturalphotographers, working all over the world. He is theonly photographer with an honorary fellowship of theRoyal Institute of British Architects.

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Carlo ScarpaMuseo Canoviano, Possagno

Opus Architecture in individual presentations

Editor: Axel Menges

1 Rudolf Steiner, Goetheanum, Dornach2 Jørn Utzon, Houses in Fredensborg3 Jørgen Bo and Vilhelm Wohlert, Louisiana

Museum, Humlebæk4 Aurelio Galfetti, Castelgrande, Bellinzona5 Fatehpur Sikri6 Balthasar Neumann, Abteikirche Neresheim7 Henry Hobson Richardson, Glessner House,

Chicago8 Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Palau de la Música

Catalana, Barcelona9 Richard Meier, Stadthaus Ulm

10 Santiago Calatrava, Bahnhof Stadelhofen, Zürich

12 Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Charlottenhof , Potsdam-Sanssouci

13 Pfaueninsel, Berlin14 Sir John Soane’s Museum, London15 Enric Miralles, C.N.A.R., Alicante16 Fundación César Manrique, Lanzarote17 Dharna Vihara, Ranakpur18 Benjamin Baker, Forth Bridge19 Ernst Gisel, Rathaus Fellbach20 Alfredo Arribas, Marugame Hirai Museum21 Sir Norman Foster and Partners, Commerz-

bank, Frankfurt am Main22 Carlo Scarpa, Museo Canoviano, Possagno23 Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Oak Park24 Kisho Kurokawa, Kuala Lumpur International

Airport25 Steidle + Partner, Universität Ulm West26 Himeji Castle27 Kazuo Shinohara, Centennial Hall, Tokyo28 Alte Völklinger Hütte29 Alsfeld30 LOG ID, BGW Dresden31 Steidle + Partner, Wacker-Haus, München32 Frank O. Gehry, Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa33 Neuschwanstein34 Architekten Schweger+Partner, Zentrum für

Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe35 Frank O. Gehry, Energie-Forum-Innovation,

Bad Oeynhausen36 Rafael Moneo, Audrey Jones Beck Building,

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston37 Schneider+Schumacher, KPMG-Gebäude,

Leipzig38 Heinz Tesar, Sammlung Essl, Klosterneuburg39 Arup, Hong Kong Station40 Berger+Parkkinen, Die Botschaften der Nordi-

schen Länder, Berlin41 Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners, Halle 3, Messe

Frankfurt42 Heinz Tesar, Christus Hoffnung der Welt, Wien43 Peichl / Achatz / Schumer, Münchner Kammer-

spiele, Neues Haus44 Alfredo Arribas, Seat-Pavillon, Wolfsburg45 Stüler / Strack / Merz, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin46 Kisho Kurokawa, Oita Stadium, Oita, Japan47 Bolles + Wilson, Nieuwe Luxor Theater, Rotterdam48 Steidle + Partner, KPMG-Gebäude, München

49 Steidle + Partner, Wohnquartier Freischützstraße, München

50 Neufert / Karle + Buxbaum, Ernst-Neufert-Bau,Darmstadt

51 Bolles + Wilson, NORD / LB, Magdeburg52 Brunnert und Partner, Flughafen Leipzig / Halle53 Johannes Peter Hölzinger, Haus in Bad Nauheim54 Egon Eiermann, German Embassy, Washington55 Peter Kulka, Bosch-Haus Heidehof, Stuttgart56 Am Bavariapark, München57 Gerber Architekten, Messe Karlsruhe58 Espace de l’Art Concret, Mouans-Sartoux59 Otto Ernst Schweizer, Milchhof, Nürnberg60 Steidle + Partner, Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremer-

haven61 Sonwik, Flensburg62 Egon Eiermann / Sep Ruf, Deutsche Pavillons,

Brüssel 195863 Ernst von Ihne / Heinz Tesar, Bode-Museum,

Berlin64 Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, International Terminal,

San Francisco International Airport65 Le Corbusier, Unité d’habitation, Marseille66 Coop Himmelb(l)au, BMW-Welt, München67 Bruno Paul, Haus Friedwart, Wetzlar68 Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus, Stuttgart69 Rathaus Bremen71 Ram Karmi, Ada Karmi-Melamede, Supreme

Court of Israel, Jerusalem72 Sep Ruf, Kanzlerbungalow, Bonn74 Dietrich Dietrich Tafel, Max-Planck-Institut für

Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin75 Otto Ernst Schweizer, Stadion Wien76 Fritz Barth, Cannstatter Straße 84, Fellbach77 Ferdinand Kramer / SSP SchürmannSpannel,

BiK-Forschungszentrum, Frankfurt am Main

9 7 8 3 9 3 0 6 9 8 2 2 6

5 4 2 0 0ISBN 978-3-930698-22-6

036.00 Euro029.00 £042.00 US $068.00 $A

Carlo ScarpaMuseo Canoviano, Possagno

TextStefan Buzas

Judith Carmel-Arthur

PhotographsRichard Bryant

Edition Axel Menges

Contents

Stefan Buzas and Judith Carmel-Arthur: Canova and Scarpa in Possagno

PlansFloor plans 16 – Sections 18

Pictorial sectionThe entrance to the museum 22 – The arcade 23 –The entrance hall 24 – The »Basilica« 26 – The entranceto the Scarpa wing 28 – The Scarpa wing 30 – The exterior of the Scarpa wing 44 – The courtyard in front of the former stables 52 – The former stables 54 – The garden 56 – Canova’s house 58

A note by Richard Bryant

Editor: Axel Menges

© 2014 Edition Axel Menges, Stuttgart /LondonISBN 978-3-930698-22-6

All rights reserved, especially those of translation into other languages.

2nd, revised edition

Reproductions: Gábor Mocsonoky, BudapestPrinting and binding: Graspo CZ, a. s., Zlín, CzechRepublic

Design: Axel MengesPlans: Roger Thomson, London

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16

22

60

preserve this extraordinary collection. The first plaster-cast gallery was thus accommodated in Lazzari’s Neo-classical building completed in 1836, with its tripartitebasilica plan, imposing coffered vaults, and large clere-story windows which flood the three interior gallerieswith an abundance of diffuse light. The first »keeper«of the Canova collections chosen by Sartori was thePossagno sculptor »Tonin« Pasino who bore Canova’sown nickname. By 1853 Sartori had also establishedthe predecessor of the present Canova Foundation towhich he legally bequeathed his half-brother’s immov-able assets.

Unfortunately, the present text is not long enoughto afford a full examination of the rich potential offeredby the collections in the Museo Canoviano. However itis worthwhile offering some observations about the na-ture of those collections, thus establishing somethingof a context for further comments. The first of theseobservations is the often overlooked fact that the act it-self of sculpting is a demanding and rigorous physicalprocess; one requiring great precision, strength andmanual skill. The sheer physical beauty of Canova’swork perhaps all to readily disguises the long hours oflabour and technical authority each finished work en-tailed. Contemporary sculptural procedures were out-lined and illustrated by line drawings in the practicalhandbook, Istruzione Elementare per gli Studiosi dellaScultura, published by Francesco Carradori in 1802, aninvaluable source for understanding Canova’s produc-tion techniques.

At Possgno, as the museum’s catalogue affirms, itis possible to follow the many individual stages of Ca-nova’s method, beginning with the choice and use oftools, the drawings or painted preparatory sketches,the making of wax and terracotta sketches in which hefirst expressed his compositional or figural ideas, andthen the full-sized clay models from which the plastercasts were taken, and lastly the creation of the marblestatues achieved – in the concluding stages – with theaid of artificial light thrown from candles used to illumi-nate the many subtleties of surface modulation.

The plaster casts were a crucial moment in thisprocess. They committed the final sculptural idea to afull-scale format. Key points along their three-dimen-sional surfaces were then marked, or »pointed«, withsmall nails, and exact measurements taken from be-tween these points and transferred to the marble, al-lowing studio apprentices to then block out the final fig-ure before Canova himself applied the finishing touches.Several references in Canova’s diaries record the num-ber of hours he worked on the originals, and thosehours of his assistants in the heavy labour of fixing theplaster casts and carving marble blocks which eventu-ally emerged as the master’s finished compositions.

A second observation is that a working sculpturestudio in late-18th-century Rome was a site not onlyof production, but also of consumption. Patrons andpotential clients visited the artist’s studio to view worksin progress and, whilst there, negotiate possible worksfor the future. The studio also offered a glimpse of

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1. Antonio Selva, Tempio Canoviano, Possagno, 1819 to 1830. (Photo: Richard Bryant.)

Stefan Buzas and Judith Carmel-ArthurCanova and Scarpa in Possagno

»The real world is a jumble of awesome complexityand immeasurable charm. Even the inorganic world ofrocks and stones is a boundless wonder. Add to thatthe ingredient of life and the wonder is multiplied be-yond imagination ...« (Peter Atkins, The Periodic King-dom)

These sentences, quoted from a scientist’s writings,come to mind when confronted with miraculous effectsof light and form, be they due to nature’s infinite rich-ness, or to the boundless imagination and creative skillof great artists. In the small addition to the Canova Mu-seum in the village of Possagno, lying in the hills nearTreviso in the Veneto, the Italian architect Carlo Scarpaexhibited this boundless wonder of light without whichneither life nor art could exist.

Scarpa was commissioned in 1955 by the Superin-tendent of Fine Arts, Venice, to design this small exten-sion to the existing, early-19th-century Canova plaster-cast gallery and to reposition statuary from the mu-seum’s overcrowded collections. Completed in 1957,the extension has a timeless and dramatic quality.The Canova Museum was already remarkable in pre-senting the collective works of a single individual. Withthe new extension the museum became – at that time –a unique amalgamation of the Neoclassical and themodern, the old and the new, in uncommon harmony.Both Scarpa’s addition and the original 1830s galleriesare bathed in rays of natural sunlight which animatethe agile forms and refined surfaces of Canova’s sculp-ture.

The extension was meant to function in two signifi-cant ways. The first was as a timely regional, if not na-tional commemoration of the late-18th-century Italiansculptor, Antonio Canova (1757–1822), born in Pos-sagno and also entombed there in the Neoclassical»Tempio Canoviano« resting on the summit of Pos-sagno’s hill. In 1955 the 200th anniversary of Canova’sbirth was imminent, and a sympathetic enlargement ofthe rich, but somewhat restricted spaces of the existingplaster-cast gallery was envisaged as an appropriatetribute. Scarpa’s extension, in empirical terms, was al-so founded in the practical necessity of augmentingthe permanent exhibition space of the existing galleries,amplifying and rationalising the display of this unrivalledsurviving collection. The new extension would exhibitCanova’s many original plaster casts – unusual in theirraw power which is often lost in the final polished mar-bles – in addition to a selection of smaller works, pre-paratory sketches and modelli fabricated in terracottaor sculpted of marble, hitherto accommodated largelyin storage rooms.

»Classicism favoured nature idealised in antique formrather than nature natural.« (J. Mordant Crook, TheGreek Revival)

Journeying to the Museo Canoviana is nothing shortof a pilgrimage to experience first-hand the most ex-quisite traditions of Italian design surviving from the dis-tant and more recent past. Travelling in a north-westerlydirection away from Venice, minor roads lead throughthe small town of Castelfranco, then climb onwards to-wards the pretty hill town of Asolo where cool windsand rich greenery offer summer retreat from the la-gooned city. Caressing wooded hills, the winding roads

emerge into an open valley. Distant hills suddenly ap-pear towards the north with the higher reaches of thetowering Dolomites in the further distance. In the pic-turesque greenery of the nearer foothills lies, some-what unexpectedly, the harmonious fabric of a honey-coloured, domed temple bearing the unmistakable pro-file of the Roman Pantheon. Turning left from Ascolois the small village of Possagno, within the shadow ofMonte Grappa, mostly and sadly remembered for thedreadful battles fought there in 1917 between Italy andthe invading armies of Austria.

Entering Possagno, mountains of stacked bricks andclay shards betray the ancient local traditions of earth-bound craftsmanship. An upper road leads to a broadstraight avenue projecting upwards as the »backbone«of the Possagno hill. At its peak lies the unusual, domedtemple glimpsed earlier from the distance. This Pan-theon-like structure is the Tempio Canoviano, begun in 1819 and originally planned as the village’s new parishchurch, but soon chosen as the final resting place ofPossagno’s most famous son. Its conception and in-deed the very intervention of its Neoclassical designinto the traditional architectural character of this quietvillage were due to Canova himself.

The structure was conceived by Canova, and itsconstruction initiated at his own expense. Incompleteat the time of his death in 1822, the Temple was fin-ished in 1830 under the instruction of his half-brotherand sole heir, the Abate Giovanni Battista Sartori (1775to 1858). The building was a monumental architecturalexpression of contemporary Neoclassical design, thelate-18th-century style which Canova championed andwhich his sculpture is so often quoted as embodyingin its purest sense.

Leaving the Temple, a lively flight of steps descendsto a path leading back towards the village. Across thepath is an unremarkable, white stucco-rendered housewith shuttered windows. Building forms and superblycrafted local materials of wood, stone and terracottaspeak of the modest, domestic architectural traditionsof the Veneto. Here there is a large and arched stoneentrance and, above, a rectangular panel framed bylaurel garlands identifies this as the birthplace of Anto-nio Canova. An additional notice inscribed with largeRoman lettering and set between the windows an-nounces the presence of the »Gypsotheca MuseoCanoviano«. Enticed through a modest, arched door-way, one enters the long arcaded passageway and in-ner courtyard, and from there into one of the most sub-tle and pleasurable museums even in this so art-filledland.

The early history of the museum is instructive. Fol-lowing Canova’s death in 1822, as the sculptor’s soleheir Giovanni Battista Sartori had the contents of Ca-nova’s vast studio in Rome transported to Possagno.There Canova had also kept a studio at the familyhome. Together, surviving artefacts from both locationsformed the nucleus of the present museum. They in-cluded a multitude of plaster casts, unfinished and un-sold marble sculptures, modelli and sculptural sketchesfabricated of terracotta and wax, and a selection oftwo-dimensional works including drawings, water-colours, and tempera paintings on black ground, in ad-dition to working tools and personal momenti. By 1832Sartori commissioned the architect Francesco Lazzarito construct a museum on the family’s property, adja-cent to the house where Canova was born, in order to

6

antique Wrestlers amongst the collection of the Tribu-na of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, then won for Canovaa prestigious 2nd prize at the Accademia. These werethe first indications of the great works to come, andthe type of patronage network in which Canova wouldrapidly become a major player. Few artists would ex-press themselves in such an explosion of creativity ina succession of great commissions.

Canova went on to produce a series of importantfigural commissions through the 1770s, being nomi-nated for membership in the Accademia by 1779. Hiskey early works, such as the individual stone figures ofOrpheus and Eurydice (both 1775–77) and the marblecomposition of Daedalus and Icarus (1778/79) showexceptional maturity and the young master’s rapid styl-istic evolution away from a vigorous, late-Baroquemanner towards more reticent and complex composi-tions informed by his study of the antique. His workalso began to show a more mature play of contrastsbetween Venetian naturalism and classical idealiza-tion.

»As men cannot rise above their principles, so theartists of Greece never rose above the religious andmoral sentiments of the age. Their Ideal was that ofyouth, grace and beauty, thought, dignity and power.Form consequently, as the expression of Mind, waswhat they chiefly aimed at, and in this way they reachedperfection ...« (Lord Lindsay, Sketches in the History of Christian Art, 3 vols, London, 1947, I, pp. XIV–XV.)

By the autumn of 1779, Canova was in Rome, in-tending the visit to be a study of masterpieces of thepast. His own record of his travels, and his first impres-sions of the city are found in his I Quaderni di Viaggio,1779–1780 (Venice, 1959). He went on to visit Naples,and the recent excavations at Herculaneum (from 1739)and Pompeii (from 1748), as well as Paestum, Casertaand Charles III’s new museum for antiquities at Portici(1750). The figurative frescoes of Pompeii became alasting inspiration for painterly diversions throughout hislife. But it was Rome, with its confluence of artists fromthe many centres of Europe, which gave him firm un-derstanding and true empathy with art of the classicalpast.

By the late 18th century Rome was an obligatorypilgrimage for any serious aspiring artist. This was thecity »where it is hardly to be believed what is constant-ly being found in Rome and its surroundings, for bare-ly a day passes without one coming across a statue,a cameo, an engraved stone, a precious piece of mar-ble ...« (Anatole de Montaiglon, ed., Correspondance,18 vols, Paris 1887–1912, VIII, p. 324.) This was the ageof the Grand Tour. Celebrated antiquities located in andaround the city had become a glowing presence in theminds of Europe’s elite, educated and wealthy arbitersof taste. What is more, knowledge of the ancients wasa kind of nourishment to contemporary culture, andwas virtually a pre-requisite for modernity in the arts.

Such knowledge was best acquired first-handthrough studying the city’s famous artefacts, as Cano-va set himself to do. But much was also to be gainedthrough brushing shoulders with Rome’s community ofartists, connoisseurs and archaeological scholars whothemselves possessed or had access to the city’s ac-claimed sculpture collections. These included Canova’ssubsequent associates, the British archaeologist andart dealer Gavin Hamilton (1723–1798), and the Britishcollector Sir William Hamilton (1730–1803), both of

whom shared Canova’s passion for the antique andhis sensibility for the emerging style of Neoclassicism.

However, it was the antiquaries resident in Rome,notably Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768),librarian to renowned antiquities collector CardinalAlessandro Albani, who devoted genuine scholarshipto the study of the antique. Under Winckelmann’s im-mense influence, an understanding of classical Greekart was placed on firmer archaeological footing forthe first time, while appreciation of the classical pastincreasingly looked to Greek statuary to reveal inspira-tion for essential human values of beauty, truth, andliberty – values already heralded by the age of the En-lightenment. Winckelmann’s claim that the emerging»Neoclassical« ideal of beauty was one of »noble graceand quiet grandeur«, aligned Neoclassicism with theperceived delicacy and finesse of Greek statuary, ratherRoman, and carried inestimable authority for youngartists such as Canova.

When Canova later journeyed to London, he espe-cially marvelled at the exquisite statuary from the Par-thenon in Athens. The Elgin Marbles are that muchmore remarkable in their superb treatment for havingoriginally comprised nearly fifty separate figures, someof colossal scale, others over life-size. They were origi-nally positioned in the temple’s metopes and pedi-ments, well above eye level, and therefore viewed notstraight-on, but from an oblique angle well below. Ca-nova wrote to his friend Quatremere de Quincy on 9November 1815 »... Here I am in London, dear and bestfriend, a wonderful city ... I have seen the marbles ar-rived from Greece. Of the basreliefs we had some ideafrom engravings, but of the full colossal figures, in whichan artist can display his whole power and science, wehave known nothing ... The figures of Phidias are all realand living flesh, that is to say, are beautiful nature itself.«What Canova so potently recognised in the Elgin Mar-bles only confirmed the realisation of his youth, that»living flesh, beautiful nature itself« was to be his life’saim, and that these qualities, through his prodigious tal-ent could be realised through the grandiose languageof the classical tradition.

But the »true style« of Neoclassicism, so-called byits most ardent defenders in Rome, was essentially abacklash against the exuberance of the Baroque. Andthe term »Neoclassicism«, coined in the mid-19th cen-tury, is difficult to define and remains something of amisnomer or – in the least – a debatable descriptivereference. Broadly speaking, the style was at the veryheart of a new apparatus of taste. It was a synthesis ofintellectual classicism with romantic naturalism, addingto these a genuine interest in recent archaeologicaldiscoveries which empirically demonstrated what wasclassically »correct«.

Neoclassicism, nonetheless, quickly became asso-ciated with mere stylism and more with modish deco-ration than with the aspirational »new Renaissance« soardently embraced by its purist advocates, includingthe young Antonio Canova. In the same sense, Cano-va’s sculptures represent far more within the history ofsculpture than his original great fame – as a »Neoclas-sical« artist – alone could do. For Canova, his presencein Rome was nothing less than a dynamic engagementwith the most influential artistic and theoretical develop-ments of his day, and it was the richness of this experi-ence coupled with his intrinsic gifts which led him to befar more than a mere imitator after the antique.

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smaller works, studies, modelli and sketches reflect-ing the unique processes of artistic invention. Other and perhaps competing patrons’ commissions mightbe glimpsed during execution, spurring desire to en-gage the master’s future services for one’s own pleas-ure and edification. The studio functioned as a sort of showroom of past, present and potential projects,clearly taking on an added »sales« factor.

It is indeed rare in the history of 18th-century sculp-ture that the contents of such a renowned artist’s studioshould survive so fully intact. It is due to the vision ofSartori that such a resource remains available to inspirefurther study not only of Canova, but also of the intri-cate relationships between sculpted artefacts from theperiod, processes of their making and the contempo-rary climate of patronage. The collections at Possagnoallow rare insight into the nature of sculpture as a work-ing profession.

But what are some further implications for the mu-seum of Sartori’s foresight and generous benefaction?Lying at the heart of his original impulse to preserveCanova’s possessions for posterity there is the concep-tion of a »collection« as a »bastion against the delugeof time«.

Sartori’s decision to maintain the studio artefacts in-tact as a group effectively rescued that store of objectsfrom dispersal and possible loss. The act of establishinga permanent collection can be viewed in retrospect asa gesture of salvation – especially of vulnerable smallermodelli and terracotta sketches – from the natural rav-ages of time and changing tastes.

The museum’s collection is not a complete »set« inthat it does not provide a definitive catalogue raisonné,but it is monographic – that is, of Canova only. By pre-serving the artefacts of a single artist as a sustainedgroup, and by ensuring their survival under the auspicesof a Canova »foundation«, Sartori in effect took it uponhimself to »construct« how history – in retrospect –would view his famous half-brother. Posterity largelysees Canova triumphal, as he is presented to us by themuseum. As a result of the museum being what andwhere it is, our perception of Canova is also totalizing.Visiting the museum, we experience him from birth,through life, up to the moment of his death. He is pre-sented to us ready-ordered. But this is not necessarilya criticism. On the contrary, in the end we are invited totravel through the various phases of the artist’s life andhis career, in consequence coming to know him moredeeply, more heroically.

Antonio Canova was born in Possagno on 1 Novem-ber 1757. Early important sources about him includethe first catalogue of his works by Tadini (Le sculturee le pitture di Antonio Canova pubblicate fino a quest’anno 1795) published in Venice in 1796. Around thetime of Canova’s death two further sources were pub-lished, one the exhaustive 14 volume catalogue in theform of an opera completa by Teotochi Albrizzi – Opere di scultura e di plastica di Antonio Canova(Pisa, 1821–24) and the second the biography by Pa-ravia – Notizie intorno alla vita di Antonio Canova(Venice, 1822).

Shortly afterwards, Canova’s own close friends andassociates contributed to the growing eulogies of theartist, including two separate volumes by the Italianhistorian of sculpture, Count Leopoldo Cicognara – Bi-ografia di Antonio Canova (Venice, 1823); Storia dellascultura dal suo risorgimento in Italia fino al secolo di

Canova (Prato, 1824) and the influential volume by theFrench theorist and historian Quatremère de Quincy –Canova et ses ouvrages (Paris, 1834). Such sumptuouscompendia, some including expensive line engravingsof the works, published so shortly after the artist’sdeath attest to the high cultural significance Canovawas already seen to have attained.

Canova’s life offers a biography ruled by an exuber-ant desire to create, although its details are relativelysimple ones. To list, to describe and to evaluate his vastnumber of sculptures – including some 60 portrait bustsclose on 40 statues, and over a dozen figural groups –is beyond the scope of this text which intends only totell his story in abbreviated form. Even this modest ac-count, however, easily betrays the rapid progress to-wards critical recognition which his talent came to en-joy.

Canova’s father, Pietro, was a local stonemason ofsome repute who died in 1761 when the young Antoniowas just 3 years old. One year later his mother marriedFrancesco Sartori of the neighbouring village of Cres-pano, leaving her first son to be raised in Possagno byhis paternal grandfather Passino, also a stonemasonand sculptor of modest religious monuments. Her sonby this second marriage was Giovanni Battista Sartori,Canova’s half-brother, lifelong friend and the sole ex-ecutor of his estate.

Canova’s grandfather may have been the first to de-tect the child’s unusual natural affinity to stone. By theearly 1770s Canova had left Possagno for Venice wherehe would receive a traditional artistic education, andwhere his pronounced natural ability would first winfavour within the ranks of the patriciate. He was ap-prenticed to the sculptor Giuseppe Bernardini, but waslater present in the workshop of the sculptor GiovanniFerrari. He is known to have carefully studied works inthe collections of the Accademia, often drawing there,and perhaps more significantly to have often studiedthe well-known plaster casts after the antique in the fa-mous collection of Filippo Farsetti. Goethe had visitedthat collection in the 1770s, and admired it as one of themost comprehensive of the latter 18th century.

At this time, such collections of plaster-cast replicasafter celebrated antique originals remained largely inprivate hands. But permission could be obtained, asCanova did, to study them by freely sketching andmaking carefully measured drawings. By the late 1700s,cast galleries had become more important than ever inthe training of future artists. They encouraged methodi-cal stylistic analysis, and remained a main source forstudy of the human figure in action and repose. Theywere also the most valuable available source for pro-moting knowledge of classical statuary, busts and re-liefs. For Canova, the Farsetti collection was an invalu-able early source, equivalent in its impact upon him tothe sculpture collections of Rome which he would laterstudy.

The patronage network to which he gained accessin Venice can equally not be underestimated. Canovasubsequently produced a significant tomb monumentfor Pope Clement XIII, cousin of the Farsetti family.Some of his earliest works in marble were alreadyrecognised for their technical virtuosity, such as the twoBaskets of Fruit of 1774 now in the Museo Correr whichwere given pride of place along the landing of Farsetti’sVenetian palace. A terracotta copy, now in the Accade-mia in Venice, of Farsetti’s plaster cast of the acclaimed

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fortless transition between one figure and another ab-sorbs the spectator, drawing the eye into the deceptivesimplicity of the figural group. In his biographical mem-oir of the sculptor published in 1824, Count Cicognaraobserved the elegant forms and tender embraces of thefigures, and how gently a play of light animates theirsurfaces.

The plaster-cast for The Three Graces now standssuperbly positioned in the Scarpa wing of the muse-um. Its pristine state invites the viewer to contemplateCanova’s sensual expression of Winckelmann’s maximof »noble simplicity and quiet grandeur«, and to gen-uinely appreciate the sentiment and technical virtuosi-ty which produced such sculptural rhythm and figuralpoise, raising this superbly crafted sculpture into a mas-terpiece of its period.

During the course of his remarkable career, Cano-va had periodically journeyed to Possagno. Towardsthe end of his life, suffering chronic illness, he finally re-turned there, devoting the last years of his life to the de-sign and construction of the noble Neoclassical-styleTemple. Construction began under the supervision ofthe architect Antonio Selva, and Canova himself laidthe foundation stone in an elaborate ceremony on11 July 1819. Within the church there is Canova’s lastmajor work.

A year before his death he was engaged on a largefunerary monument dedicated to the Marchese di Sal-za, but little could he have known that his own funerarymonument would shortly be constructed from this un-finished composition, and would shelter his own bodyand that of his half-brother. Antonio Canova died on 13 October 1822. At the time of his death in 1822 noliving sculptor in Europe could command the immenseadmiration, and sometimes disparagement, which Ca-nova had received during the course of his lifetime.

Having attempted to describe the remarkable talent,vision and knowledge of one exceptional man, it is nownecessary to try to define the rare creative gifts of an-other, equally exceptional man. But as much as anytrue architect, because Carlo Scarpa’s creativity sprangfrom his personal response to the subtle variables oflight and spatial interplay, no publication can satisfacto-rily represent the indefinable balance he was able toachieve between dark and light, void and solid, volumeand mass. It is almost impossible to transmit such val-ues effectively in words.

Even the finest of Scarpa’s compositions can onlyremain pleasurable, long after, to the viewer who is inti-mately and subconsciously aware of Scarpa’s fusionof space and the object with light. To convey the magi-cal qualities of his work, even the mythical power ofthe written word can only give some modest revela-tion. Richard Bryant’s photographs included here comenearest to revealing Scarpa’s personal world of intensebeauty.

Scarpa’s ways of working were perhaps nearer thoseof architects from past centuries. He did not require ei-ther the technical facilities or the fast-paced, profes-sionally organised routine which we so readily associatewith architectural practice in the present day. His de-signs – of which there remains an archive of over18,000 drawings – were largely executed during thequiet hours of the night, while daytime was reservedfor the pleasurable activities of reading and looking, andenjoying a constant discourse with friends and associ-

ates. Young and not so young colleagues joined himfrom many countries to benefit from his cultured ap-proach, and assisted in executing drawings for the re-alisation of his designs. But in the end there has neverbeen any question that all Scarpa’s designs were hisand his alone. For Scarpa was renowned for his intuitiveskills in transforming through drawing any idea into liv-ing matter. The nearest one can come to understandingthe complex inception and development of his ideas isto study those drawings.

A native Venetian, Scarpa was born in 1906. The im-pact of the place of his birth on the manner in which heconceived of architecture cannot be underestimated.By self-definition a craftsman, a problem solver and amaker of interventions in the built environment, Scarpasaw inert form as being infused with life through its dis-creet dialogues with materials, space, and above alllight and time. For Scarpa, the changing shape of lightcreates the shape of things. Shifting intensities of vol-ume, mass, texture and colour are dependent upon theresonances of light, and materiality is achieved along-side the ephemeral and the transparent. There is aVenetian pedigree to these empowered notions of light,time and transformation, and this pedigree is ever pre-sent in Scarpa’s Œuvre.

It is possible here only to briefly summarise Scar-pa’s career with a focus upon some of those momentswhich contributed most to his eminent achievementsat Possagno between 1955 and 1957. Scarpa initiallytrained at the renowned Accademia di Belle Arti inVenice in architectural design. Although he never ob-tained his licence, he enjoyed a lengthy and influentialteaching career from 1926 at Venice’s Istituto Universi-tario di Architettura, eventually obtaining the distinctionof professor. Beginning in the following year he workedas a professional designer, and continued to run a de-sign studio through the early 1960s.

In 1927 Scarpa obtained the prestigious post of artis-tic consultant to the Murano glass manufacturer Capel-lini, subsequently taking up a post of the same title withthe famous Venini firm on Murano in 1933 and remain-ing there until 1947. Scarpa’s formative designs for Ve-nini glass already effortlessly showed his unique facilityfor invention, along with his abiding regard for long-es-tablished artisinal tradition.

From the beginning, Scarpa maintained a progres-sive dialogue between crafts conventions and the disci-plines of design. His experimental approach sought outthe innumerable possibilities offered by materials andmethods, and he spared no effort in liasing closely withmaster craftsmen and artisans with whom he came toform long-lasting co-operations. Acknowledging his col-laborators with the highest praise, Scarpa consideredhimself one of them – an artisan – and often workedwith the same masters over many projects. In this,Scarpa tacitly acknowledged the profession of architec-ture as one of inter-dependent and inter-disciplinary re-lations.

His focus on this essential exchange was itself anassertion that traditions of »manual craft« were a deci-sive element in the designing and making of new archi-tecture. This point of view betrayed an equally auspi-cious approach to all architecture as an ongoing pro-cess of new research into the indivisible pursuits ofbuilding craft and design. Scarpa’s experiences withglassmaking first at Cappellini and then at Venini in partmotivated his enquiries into the potentials and limita-

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Canova remained in Rome, and by the early 1780sbegan to produce more mature and sophisticated com-positions. The artefacts in the Gypsoteca Canovianoprovide an excellent representative chronology of thisaesthetic development. Although the museum containsmainly preparatory works, with comparatively few fin-ished marbles, it remains possible to map the high-lights of his œuvre by reviewing the collections.

In Rome, Canova began to design a series of inno-vative funerary monuments which progressively em-ployed less robust, quieter and more sacramental im-agery than their late-Baroque precedents. These worksalso expressed Winckelmann’s new ideals of quiet ele-gance and repose. They included the monument toClement XIV; that for Clement XIII; the unexecuted mon-ument to the Venetian painter Titain; and the plastercast from 1817–22 of Pius VI.

The most important of these grandiose composi-tions is represented in Possagno by the large-scaleplaster cast of 1800 for the funerary monument of Ma-ria Christina of Austria. Here Canova brought about apowerful fusion of bold architectural motifs with the hu-man figure. The radically new compositional scheme,developed from the earlier monument to Titian, focusedaround the architecture of the tomb itself, its severepyramidal form rising fatefully upwards behind the fig-ures which are aligned in a processional cortege nearthe tomb’s open door. The figures’ gestures are reti-cent; their idealization learned from classical models.

One of Canova’s most delicate, popular and admiredsubjects was the theme of Cupid and Psyche, executedin both single figures and in more technically demand-ing group compositions from the mid-1780s. As muchas anything, his work in the genre established him asthe 18th-century’s master of this erotic-mythologicalcategory. At Possagno there is a fine terracotta sketchof 1787 for the famous finished marbles representingreclining figures of Amor and Psyche in the Hermitage.There is also a plaster cast dating from around 1800 ofa standing Cupid and Psyche group. This work alreadyshows the complex intermingling of form and a relaxedsensuality of individual gestures. Although the cast indicates only one of Canova’s formulations of this sub-ject, the Neoclassical ideal of sensuality, lightness andgraceful charm is wholly personified in the daring yetballetic pose of the nude adolescent male, a tangiblerealisation of Winckelmann’s aesthetic maxims. Otherworks at Possagno within this genre include the com-plex plaster cast of 1789 representing Adone Wreathedby Venus, and the standing group of Venus and Ado.

As Canova continued to explore the expressive po-tential inherent in classical subjects, he also refined hisinterest in themes of masculine strength and pugilism,exploring tensions between irrational Dionysian forcesand rational Apollonian virtue. During much of his lifecommissions for over life-size mythological figuresadded to his fame and popularity. Works of this typeshow Canova’s mastery in acknowledging precedent,such as that of the celebrated antique Farnese Her-cules. Sculptors through history have consciouslylooked to sculpture of the past in order to determinetheir own boundaries. Sculpture references sculpture,and Canova’s approach was no different. But while dis-playing erudition, he was equally concerned to reinter-pret psychological states of turmoil with a new heroicrestraint which was completely modern, original, andartistically challenging. At Possagno, works of this type

include the statue of the pugilist Damoxenos, and theremarkable plaster cast dating from 1795 to 1815 of theover life-size mythological group of Hercules and Licuswith its complex triangular outline, a work of exception-ally subtle impact.

Other works surviving at Possagno represent Cano-va’s gifts as a portraitist. Especially after the turn ofthe century his portrait sculpture gained considerablepraise, and was sought after in many European courts.Far more commissions were proposed than could beattempted or completed, and much survives executedin both marble and plaster cast. Canova had the rareability to model facial character and drapery with an al-luring naturalism, but at the same time moderating thiswith a compositional formality rooted in antique Romanportraiture.

Canova accepted a number of important commis-sions for allegorical-cum-portrait sculpture, producingsome exemplary large-scale statues which prove hisability to reinterpret antique prototypes in a modern id-iom. Amongst the works surviving at Possagno are theplaster cast of the imposing figure of Madame Mère,Leitzia Ramolino, Napoleon’s mother, the original marblenow in the Duke of Devonshire’s collection at Chats-worth in Derbyshire. In this case the antiquel formulaefor sovereign power – a hierarchical depiction of Em-peror or Empress presiding rigidly upright and frontal –has been mediated by the feigned grace and languid-ness of contemporary taste. Canova’s statuary re-sponded to the politics of patronage on this and manyother occasions.

Canova also designed a number of reclining figuresmimicking, while not reproducing antique prototypes.Further, his large scale, heroic statuary was perhapsless portraiture strictly speaking than an exercise insatisfying the market for political memorials. There areseveral excellent preparatory works for this type of stat-uary at Possagno, including the plaster model depictingGeorge Washington enthroned in the antique mannerof a lawmaker.

One must not omit the considerable number of mar-ble and cast-plaster compositions in bas-relief whenrecounting Canova’s œuvre. Produced from the late1780s onward, many surviving at Possagno, theseworks are in some respects closer to painting thansculpture. They emphasise Canova’s exploration ofpurely sculptural relationships between figure and back-ground, as well as his continuing interest in the poten-tial of sculpture to tell a story. Drawing their abundantsubjects from Greek mythology and tragedy, as wellas from the Old and New Testaments, their format isbased upon the conventional geometry of antique, pri-marily Attic Greek stelae. In Canova’s hands composi-tions such the bas-relief for Nicola Antonio Giustinianibecame exceptionally lively and powerful.

Amongst the more than one dozen sculpted figuralgroups executed by Canova, The Three Graces exem-plifies his deep understanding of the human body andits infinite subtleties of movement. Carved for the Em-press Josephine, it is perhaps the most famous of hisworks. Such creations belie the often held opinion thatthe Neoclassical vision of Canova could be cold, its in-tentions merely »skin deep«. Canova’s treatment of thetheme is anything but impersonal. The graceful inter-twining of figures in this revolving composition showsthe delicacy with which Canova was able to interlockapparently living forms in contrapuntal harmony. The ef-

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2. Antonio Canova, The Three Graces, 1813–16. (Photo:Richard Bryant.)

outstanding of his masterpieces in this area: the addi-tion he built between 1955 and 1957 in Possagno forthe Gipsoteca Canoviana.

In the apparent simplicity of its design, Scarpa’s ex-tension at Possagno is both deceptive and ingenious.The existing basilica-like museum was enlarged by acomparatively small addition. Within three distinct andbeautifully orchestrated volumes Scarpa was able tocreate a composition comparable to a musical suite inthree movements, also creating a suite in luminosity. Itis difficult to describe the abundance of spatial compo-sitions which arise wherever on looks. Suffice it to saythat these spaces leave one with a feeling of abundantjoy.

The site was originally a narrow, descending plotstretching nearly the entire length of one of the »nave«sides of the existing basilica-like museum. The site thuspresented a series of complex variables in respect toboth the terrain and the extant structure. Scarpa de-signed the extension as an irregular »L« shape, consist-ing of three volumes. The shortest segment of the »L«is attached to the old museum, forming one roughlyrectangular gallery along with the cubic »high« gallery.The longest stretch of the »L« is slightly offset from theside of the museum building, running parallel to thelarger structure, downwards towards the boundary ofthe site, and forming an elongated wedge-shapedgallery. Scarpa’s design also includes a narrow exteriorpassageway between the long wedge-shaped galleryand the museum wall. Overall, this arrangement of new,low-lying sequential volumes allows the mass of the19th-century building to remain dominant and, in com-parison, Scarpa’s addition is both precious and under-stated.

Although Scarpa was given complete freedom in thedevelopment of his design, and was required to pre-serve nothing, his plan amounted to a radical modifica-tion of the historical site without impeding the integrityof any of the surviving buildings. The new galleries areeffectively woven into the original fabric of the site. Theyare also unobtrusively woven into the existing fabric ofthe mediaeval hilltown with apparently little effort. Al-though in part standing free of the museum, the addi-tion is densely packed alongside it and thereby echoesthe more traditional associative relationships betweengenerations of existing buildings scattered through inthe village.

In addition to the galleries, Scarpa almost impercep-tibly added a new boundary wall between the site andthe adjacent street. This simple device helped to unob-trusvely join his interventions to the local built environ-ment by echoing its own intrinsic irregularity. The wallexemplifies the detailed considerations which Scarpaintroduced at every level of his design activity in orderto fully integrate the »new« within the urban landscape.The wall also enriches the new gallery wing by articulat-ing Scarpa’s interpretation of the traditional walled patiogarden as an exterior space both notionally and archi-tecturally integrated with its environment.

Volumetric relationships within Scarpa’s design areno less responsive to the problematic site. The newwing is defined by three discrete volumes, each a smallgallery. Individually they boast complex relationshipswith one another, as well as with the existing museumbuilding, the site and the adjacent street.

The exterior of the addition is stucco rendered ma-sonry, with rough concrete finishing around the win-

dows and along the roof line. This quite subtle play ofdissimilar surface textures imparts the illusion of changein the perceived scale of separate parts, especially inthe juxtaposition of the imposing wall surface with themore delicate detailing around the edges.

The first and largest of these volumes forms a tran-sitional, narrative space between the old and the new.It is a slightly irregular, rectangular gallery with one an-gled wall, poised immediately off the old museum andthe only portion of the new Scarpa wing to be pinnedagainst the original structure.

This top-lit semi-shadowy first area gives a glimpseinto the formal arrangement of the lofty basilica. In itscentre, Canova’s beautiful pyramidal composition repre-senting Adonis Crowned by Venus is gently illuminatedby a golden-coloured rooflight, this soft source also be-stowing an almost tactile quality to the row of femalebusts. It is also possible from here to look directly intoboth smaller volumes of the new »L« shaped wing,and forward into the alluring distances of Italian land-scape.

This is also the point where all four contrastingspaces meet, tempting one’s next direction. With atantalising view ahead, the second volume begins toreveal itself. This volume is the tall cubic, or »high«,gallery, renowned for its four magnificent corner sky-lights. To the left down two short flights of steps thethird volume comprises the long, wedge-shaped gal-lery which in its changing levels mirrors the capricious,stepped fall of the natural ridge of the hill as it dropsdownwards into the rural countryside. At this end of thegallery one comes upon the full-height window that isthe one connection with the outside. Here, there is acarefully contrived juxtaposition between architecturalstructure, sky, trees and Canova’s famous group ofThe Three Graces.

Beyond the glazing, the basin of water reflects thesky and supplies a shimmering light from below tocounter the strong light from the sky – a memorable in-vention which imparts a seductive softness to the inter-twining forms of The Three Graces. In this respect, if inno other, Scarpa was a masterful manipulator of naturallight and a descendant of the great Venetian traditionsof illumination.

In its blending of old and new, the contemporarywith the historic, the first gallery is perhaps the mostsymbolic. It is the key site in which Scarpa addressesthe matter of intervention. Here, along one side of thelow-ceilinged room, a former exterior wall of the oldermuseum building is retained and transformed by Scar-pa into an exhibition wall for the Canova bas-reliefs.Scarpa also manipulated notions of interior and exteriorby creating an »invisible« arcaded passageway downthe inside of the wall, alternating the height of the pas-sage with that of the main gallery space, while employ-ing exposed I-beams to form the rhythmic supports ofthe arcade. Functionally the I-beams mimic classicalcolumns, but their material presence has been maderelatively transparent by an overlay of white paint. Themeaning of the arcade, however, is not located in thenotion of a passageway, but in the positioning of Cano-va’s work along the opposite wall. For a viewer in thegallery, the change of floor level necessitates a pause inmotion. The edge of the gallery floor becomes a view-ing platform, dictating the most opportune level anddistance from which to admire Canova’s work. The »in-visible« arcade and the viewing platform are architec-

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3. Carlo Scarpa, Galleria Nazionale della Sicilia, Palaz-zo Abatellis, Palermo, 1953/54. (From: Christine Hoh-Slodczyk, Carlo Scarpa und das Museum, Berlin, 1987.)4. Carlo Scarpa, Galleria Fondazione Querini Stampalia,Venice, 1961–63. (From: Christine Hoh-Slodczyk, CarloScarpa und das Museum, Berlin, 1987.)5. Carlo Scarpa, Museo Civico di Castelvecchio, Verona,1956–64. (From: Global Architecture, 51.)6. Carlo Scarpa, Olivetti showroom, Venice, 1957–59. (From: Global Architecture, 51.)

tions of craft convention, and were subsequently recog-nised as a seminal influence in his developing focusupon problematic combinations of the old with the new.These considerations were soon combined to form hisstrategy for any intervention in an historic architecturalfabric.

By the end of the 1930s, Scarpa had become in-volved with the restoration of historic structures. Overthe following years he would gain immense criticalpraise for his rejuvenation of the interiors of historic gal-leries and museums in Italy, his work commissioned byvarious institutions concerned with not only progressivedesign, but also the tourist industry. The first instance ofthis type of intervention was in the ancient historic fab-ric of the Ca’ Fóscari in Venice, during 1936/37, whereScarpa’s endeavours provided evidence of his consum-mate skill in the manipulation of materials. This commis-sion also proved Scarpa’s sensitivity towards designingstructure and space while prioritising the contextual im-portance of historic artefacts on display. He consistentlyexpressed special concern to retain the authenticity andintegrity of any structure. He also looked carefully at themore abstract qualities of atmosphere and light in orderto retain the timelessness of any historic fabric in whicha collection of artefacts was present, achieving an at-mospheric intimacy which evoked the past life of theartefacts themselves and their role in the story of a sur-viving building.

Prior to his work at the Canoviano in Possagno,Scarpa had also gained experience during 1953/54 indesigning the museum interior of the Palazzo Abatellisin Palermo, and was subsequently occupied with similarinterventions at the Museo Correr in Venice in 1953 to 1960, and at the Fondazione Querini-Stampalia, also inVenice, in 1961–63. In 1964 Scarpa again achieved criti-cal recognition for his redesign at the Museo Civico diCastelvecchio in Verona, a seminal instance in whichthe institution was sited in a venerable building beingreinvented with mindful regard for its unique past.

Throughout the course of his work in the museumand gallery sector, Scarpa’s interventions questionedprevailing notions about museum design and also in-terrogated the time-honoured idea of galleries as other-worldly spaces secreted within venerable structuresoften lacking sufficient air or natural light. Scarpa’s re-sponse to the redesign of such interiors simply ad-dressed different challenges. He looked painstakinglyat the whole of a site and its available space. He inter-preted artefacts themselves as the active agents to beaccommodated foremost in any »exhibition« buildingscheme. Because Scarpa prioritised the requirementsof artefacts, his architectural choices facilitated a new,more purely abstract approach to renovation and inter-vention, and this is seen perhaps above all at Possagno.

Other early considerations which informed Scarpa’seventual work at the Canova Museum were located inhis experimental approach to exhibition display. Part ofthe success and magic of Possagno rests clearly on thenature of his display solutions which drew together inan entirely new and remarkable fashion much of the ex-perience and expertise gained earlier. His career inter-rupted by the Second World War, during the late 1940’sScarpa began a series of co-operations with the presti-gious Venice Biennale, a relationship which served tobring his work in the field of exhibition and display de-sign to the critical attention of an international audience.From 1948 until 1972 he acted as design consultant to

the Biennale, contributing to nine Biennali overall, witha number of acclaimed exhibitions, including that for theworks of Paul Klee in 1948, the Book Pavilion in 1950and the Venezuela Pavilion in 1954–56. In addition topermanent museum installations and the redesign ofcommercial shops and showrooms, such as his nowclassic design for Olivetti in the Piazza San Marco(1957/58), Scarpa also designed numerous exhibitionsoutside of Venice, including the exposition of Mondri-an’s work in Rome in 1956, and the renowned exhibi-tion of original mural paintings, Frescoes from Florence,after the great flood of the Arno in 1966. When that ex-hibition travelled internationally, other countries receivedtheir first glimpse of Scarpa’s singular genius in contem-porary display design.

For Scarpa, exhibitions, particularly those sited inmuseums, offered far more than a mere occasion tomediate on behalf of collected artefacts in the illustriouswarehouses of European culture. Instead, he conceivedof an exhibition as an aesthetic thoroughfare in whichall elements of visual culture and the built environmentwere channelled together. As such, each new exhibitionoffered the designer a chance to personally assess theartefacts through display design, also bringing new andunexpected insight to bear upon the presentation ofworks to a viewing public.

Scarpa’s manner of both museum and exhibitiondesign drew together various themes. While always ac-knowledging that environmental design for single andcollective artefacts needed to be, certainly in theory, fo-cused upon the immutable factors of space, mass andlight, Scarpa equally recognised the same principles asfundamental to architectural expression, and was there-fore unforgiving of much traditional museum and gallerydesign that was not primarily architectural in the first in-stance. In practical terms, the design of a museum orgallery interior is an intricate affair, requiring refinedtechnical considerations, especially in order to achievean all-around diffusion of natural light in conventionallytop-lit spaces. Scarpa believed the best exhibition de-signers were those most able to architecturally exploitthe complexities of natural light.

To some extent, Scarpa’s approach was also an at-tempt to de-mystify the traditionally reticent museumenvironment and to provoke a more aware responseto the continuum of aesthetic possibilities – past andpresent – inherent in so many museum settings. To doso he acknowledged the numerous sequences of activi-ties which brought together otherwise separate designpossibilities, so that in the end the whole of a buildingbecame an exhibit, and a multitude of considerations –structure, volume, colour, and light – were powerfullyfused together. In Scarpa’s hands, cultural master-pieces assumed a new complexity and their value wasrenewed, while a building itself could no longer be per-ceived as inflexible and immune to time, but was reju-venated by its role in the course of incessant changewhich he made visible.

The single consistent feature of Scarpa’s œuvrewhich most defies not only analysis, but the power ofthe written word, is his mastery of light. This masterywas exemplified, above all, in his universally acclaimedeminence in museum and exhibition design. It is there-fore appropriate in the present work to celebrate Scar-pa’s vision by looking closely at one commission in thefield of museum and display design which has beenconsistently heralded in the critical literature as the most

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are consistently highlighted as transitional devices, everleading the spectator into more ethereal worlds. Someare interned by marble sections. All are dramatically un-dercut, so that the slab stretches outwards horizontallywith apparently little or no visible means of support. Themost celebrated is the emphatic »floating« step symbol-ically placed at the entrance to the Scarpa wing. Theseinventions not only resolve the fundamentally problem-atic changes of level on the side, but orchestrate themovement of the narrative from old to new.

At Possagno, manipulation of glass by Scarpa wasalways an emphatic gesture. Glass is present in a se-lection of sub-narratives, as well as playing a more nor-mative role. It signals the presence of a void, and exac-erbates juxtapositions between what is fixed and whatis fluid, what is of the present and what endures fromthe past. It acts as a point of clarification in the obser-vation of Scarpa’s design objectives, especially whenused as a transparent envelope to intensify perceptionsof space and light. The constant movement and mu-tability of natural light within the galleries also countsamongst the most crucial factors in observing Scar-pa’s refined positioning of the artefacts.

Scarpa’s genius in exhibition design not only ex-ploited his own intrinsic sensibilities, but equally ensuedfrom his recognition of the inherent merits of each workof art. He remained keenly aware of how and where anartefact came into contact with space and light, anddesigned his means of display around those momentsof interaction. Throughout the new galleries the assort-ed mechanisms of display are invested with diversemeasures of reserve. All are poised with self-assurance.Some have a distinctive bearing, while others are en-tirely more allusive. Whatever their individual character,they offer up solitary stages of the artistic narrative, en-couraging a paced, thoughtful journey through the gal-leries.

One is able to move around displays, getting an in-timate sense of sculptural mass and volume. Seductiveplays of shadow across solid form become more no-ticeable, diffuse light illuminates the highly plastic valuesof the modelling, and profiles are relieved against gra-dations of light drifting across the background surfaceof the room. Smaller works have been lifted to a scru-pulously judged height. Many are raised upon narrowblock stands of polished ebony, its rich dark surfacefloating against the luminous backdrop of the gallery,the whole effect pulsating in contrasting modulationsof light and dark.

Scarpa typically designed each individual stand orplatform to perfectly set off a unique artefact, and in re-ality the props and braces differ markedly in their mate-rials and configurations. Particularly at Possagno thewall-hung exhibits seems to float effortlessly on invisibleiron brackets, each strategically placed within a lumi-nous composition of changing light and shadow.

Other supports for smaller statuary are made of ma-sonry, while the large reclining figures are displayed wellbelow eye level on black iron superstructures designedto maintain their weight. The iron and glass vitrinesthroughout were also designed by Scarpa. Their formsmimic the inward-penetrating lights of the cubic gallery,a delicate black iron armature supporting their floatingvolumes. They are as transparent as the galleries them-selves, and have warranted sustained critical praise.

With Scarpa’s interventions, museums also neces-sarily became centres of contemporary design and as

such eclipsed in their possibilities for artistic expressionand for learning the more traditional museum enclosure.And all this well before the current emphasis on the so-called »Bilbao phenomenon« gave us museums with»destination« status.

In 1978 Scarpa died in Sendai, Japan. His son Tobialovingly designed a tomb for his father who was laid torest at the site of his own architectural magnum opus,the Brion Cemetery in San Vito d’Altivole. In Contem-porary World Architecture, Hugh Pearman wrote, onesuspects, with some degree of sentiment that »in the1970s, it seemed as if one architectural world – theworld not only of international modernism, but also ofcraftsmanship, of conservatism – had died with Scarpawhile another world – the world of high-precision, ma-chine-made, radical architecture was taking over«. Aftersetting foot in Possagno, it is impossible to disagreewith him.

What is remarkable at Possagno is that the artisticvision of a single architect was so effortlessly able tounite the past with the present, and that the ambiancewhich resulted intuitively reinforced the aesthetic dramaof a valuable corpus of art works. Scarpa’s focus on alimited number of materials, perhaps the foremost ofthese being glass, led to a remarkable uniformity of thestructural and aesthetic aims of the project. Possagnohas been called one of the 20th Century’s finest exam-ples of architectural intervention in an historic fabric.Together with Scarpa’s own work at Castelvecchio, it isheralded as less an example of conservation or restora-tion, than a liberation of architectural meaning and pos-sibility.

During the latter half of the 20th century, increasing-ly more individuals have journeyed to sites of historic in-terest, whether they be ancient churches, industrial re-furbishments or monuments of rural nostalgia. In theWest we suffer an ongoing affair with the historic past.Our passions are, if anything, more acutely engagedafter site restoration and conservancy than before.The more frequently, it seems, older structures are pre-served, the more frequently we encourage preservationin some form. We perceive ourselves as enthusiasticparticipants in the ongoing historical narrative, and re-main ever keen to personally experience those parts ofthe story which came before us. Preservation, restora-tion, and conservation are all factors in the unveilingof the past, and all continue to enrich contemporaryknowledge for the benefit of tomorrow.

What Carlo Scarpa unveiled at Possagno, however,was far greater than a moment of the historic past. Hisunique and crucial contribution was in formulating archi-tectural metaphors by means of which one could moreclearly perceive the dynamic of the narrative itself. Byso fluidly juxtaposing the old with the new, he allowedbuildings to tell the story of history while being activeagents of historical progress at the same time.

In this way his contribution is more full-bodied andfertile than conservation or restoration alone could be.His imagination has adapted the past to the present, re-versing the customary approach to the renewal of his-toric architectural monuments, and in doing so enrich-ing our perceptions of what architecture can be. Espe-cially when designed by such a master.

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tural devices enabling Scarpa to uncover layers of thebuilding’s history in a single narrative moment.

The »invisible« corridor is a primary example at Pos-sagno of how Scarpa experimented with different pos-sible readings of the building as a »container«. Multiplelevels of meaning shown in a single architectural mo-ment such as this allowed Scarpa to critically commenton the nature of intervention and to make manifest theprinciples by which he worked. He is able to offer inter-pretations in which an historic fabric is veiled or re-vealed, and to directly address issues of modificationand deformation at the same instance in which he pre-serves a portion of the historic fabric. Slowly journeyingthrough the Possagno galleries, it becomes possible tofollow the development of Scarpa’s dialogue with thepast and to measure such single moments in the storyhe is telling.

Furthermore, Scarpa’s use of monochromatic, whiteplaster rendering for the interior wall surfaces of thisand the other two galleries of the extension was star-tling in the design of gallery space at that time. Theplacement of Canova’s white plaster and marble arte-facts against white walls was a critical response to con-ventions of sculptural display, while challenging theviewer’s perceptions of the subtleties of light, dark andshadow. Scarpa made not only a strongly architecturalstatement, but one which was perhaps almost painterlyin its desire describe in minute detail the subtle transi-tions of surface volume and texture on both the buildingand the artefacts.

Scarpa’s work at Possagno continues to be re-garded as a landmark demonstration of how a highlycomplex architectural programme involving both thepast and the present can be orchestrated. He contin-ues to be admired for his innovations in the overall re-design of the site, down to the most intimate features ofthe interior. Some of the more subtle features within thegalleries, for example, still captivate and marvel, and re-main forceful influences of how volumes and artefactsare perceived. Scarpa inserted narrow baseboards ofblack metal through the new galleries. These radicallydelineate the junctions between wall and floor, and areunique devices which serve to clarify the individual vol-umes of the three new galleries, as well as the transi-tions between them. The baseboards outline thespaces as if by drawn line. In the cubic or »high« galleryScarpa created a similar effect wherein the surface ofthe ceiling reaches beyond that of the wall, leaving anarrow inset crevice to fill with shadow, resolutely off-setting the vertical against the horizontal, and causingthe ceiling to mysteriously hover.

In its own right, the gallery is a fantastic and lyricalmovement in this symphony of light and is a quite re-markable tour-de-force. A single step brings one intothis enclosed cube, twice the height of the previousspace. Such spatial sequence is not unusual. But whatis singular, apart from the change in brightness, is thelight source. Positioned at each of the upper cornersof the cube, four glass rectangles in two matching pairsallow the sky with its moving clouds to illuminate thegleaming white volume of the gallery. The frames ofthe two longer windows were fabricated from iron, andviewed from the exterior cause the elevation of thestucco-rendered mass to appear changeable. Theyare supported with slim plaster shelves, bestowing agreater architectonic feeling than apparent in theircounterparts. The frames of the smaller cubic windows

are obvious only along the vertical contours, while anear invisible triangular member joins the upper glassplate to those at the sides. The result is the entirelyunimpeded intrusion of the blue of the Italian sky intothe space of the gallery. The surprising, and perhapseven unique invention of the four transparent, inward-penetrating rectangles results in an equally startlingcondition of natural light.

A normal opening in a wall gives rise to a maximumcontrast between the high luminosity of the sky, framedby an almost black edge, to the solid wall surroundingthe opening. By inverting this condition and formingtransparent membranes of glass, the inward penetra-tion almost totally eliminates harsh contrasts. Surround-ing walls are indirectly illuminated, creating a softnessthat brings the plaster surfaces of Canova’s originalsto life, caressing the figures. With the sun’s rays movingwithin this luminous cube, angled shafts of sunlightdance along the walls, touching the dramatically placedportrait bust of the sculptor as it is thrust forward onsteel brackets, accompanied by a small sketch of PopeClement XIV below. The whole is an arena of theatricalmagic.

The third volume of Scarpa’s extension is the »long«or wedge-shaped gallery. Its volume decreases pro-gressively in width as it recedes from the older building,producing a narrow exterior passageway along the wallof the basilica and creating another »spatial« wedgerunning the length of Scarpa’s addition. A glass win-dow-wall of wooden framing comprises that side of thegallery. This simple although radical structural solutionwithin a museum context considerably increases theamount of natural light filling the new gallery, while inpart undermining normative interpretations of glass asa mere window onto the outside world. Scarpa not on-ly associates the use of glass with both light and struc-ture, as opposed to view, but employs a contemporarytechnical solution popularised by the »International«style to express his individual approach to intervention.The window-wall does offer a view, but directly onto themarvellous stuccoed fabric of the 18th-century building.With Scarpa, the window is a vehicle through which toexamine an architectural fragment, illuminating a differ-ent space, a different time, an earlier part of the samenarrative. The new offers a telescopic view of the old,and architecture in Scarpa’s hands has ceased to be inany way dispassionate. It is self-explanatory, reflectingback upon itself with celebratory intent.

At the far, narrowest end of the gallery, four floor-to-ceiling glass panels were designed with slim, under-stated vertical supports giving an unimpeded prospectonto the reflecting pool outside. These glass panelsbear framing elements only on the inside, allowing thesides of the gallery to deceptively continue uncheckedinto exterior space. The implementation of this seam-less transition was a critical design statement, provok-ing free visual play from interior to exterior. The result isa remarkable contrast between textures and volumes,suggesting the apparent ease with which Scarpa couldinterject changes and juxtapositions in materials andmeaning within a single plane. By inverting the conceptof »edge«, Scarpa unveiled new architectural and sym-bolic relations between the inside and the outside ofthe gallery.

Relationships between the relative heights anddepths of the galleries are also defined by the significantarchitectural detailing of the steps and ceilings. Steps

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1. Floor plan. Key: 1 arcade, 2 entrance hall, 3 »Basili-ca«, 4 high gallery, 5 long gallery, 6 the former stables.2. Reflected ceiling plan.

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3–6. Cross sections.

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7–10. Longitudinal sections.

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1. The entrance to the museum.2. The arcade with the entrance to the »Basilica« and the Scarpa wing in the background.

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5, 6. The »Basilica«.

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7, 8. The entrance hall looking towards the Scarpa wing.

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9, 10. The high gallery.

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11, 12. Detailed views of the high gallery.

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