The Olivetti showroom in St Mark's Square, Venice by Carlo Scarpa

Olivetti was established as an office equipment company in the 1930s by Adriano Olivetti. Olivetti enriched his technical design teams with graphic designers, architects, writers, artists and advertisers, and commissioned many well known architects of the time to design offices, factories and showrooms, the most beautiful being Carlo Scarpa’s showroom in Venice’s St Mark’s Square, which has recently been restored by Italy’s National Trust, FAI. While recently in Venice I went to have a look..

Images my own

The Castelvecchio, Verona by Carlo Scarpa

Having seen a wealth of Carlo Scarpa buildings and sculptures in Venice, I was starting to get a bit bored of the same details and the same steps and stairs, which although undoubtedly are very beautiful, they border on repetitive after the fifth or sixth time. The Castelvecchio, however, a museum located within the complex of a solid red brick fortress on the banks of Verona’s river Adige, only secured by love for all things Scarpa. Restored by Carlo Scarpa from 1957 to 1975, the museum has all the hallmarks of a classic Scarpa building, with carefully considered details ranging from the stands and fixtures holding up the Byzantine art, to the apertures and openings that mark the meetings of different materials.

The main wow-factor for me appeared after the initial series of gallery rooms, where a balancing act of ramps and staircases attach the gallery to the fortress wall and bridge across the river. Here a statue of a Lord on a horse, Cangrande- the greatest of the della Scala family, the Lords of Verona in the fourteenth century- stands precariously on a landing strip looking over the Giardini below. Here, also, Scarpa demolished part of a barracks added by the occupying French during the nineteenth century. Thus, Scarpa renovated the Castelvecchio originally built in 1354, patching up the ancient and old with the modern, not only turning the museum into a classic masterpiece mimicking the textures and forms of the Byzantine and Renaissance, but also subtly pointing the visitor to its illustrious past.

There was even a little dog who enjoyed the gardens at the Castelvecchio!

Fondazione Querini Stampalia by Carlo Scarpa

While on my trip to Venice for the Architecture Biennale, I also paid a trip to the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, which includes a bookshop carved out by architect Mario Botta, and a renovated ground floor by Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa. The former Palazzo, previously rendered unusable by the frequent invasion of sea water, was given a new lease of life by Scarpa, with the use of gutters and stone steps, which allow the water to come in by just the right amount. The attention to detail continues into the garden, with intricate water features and bands of golden mosaic tiles.

 All images my own