After the visit of the San Giorgio Maggiore island, we visited Carlo Scarpa’s most well-know work, the Querini Stampalia Foundation. The above picture is a famous view that appears in many books, including the scan I have on my post about my presentation on Carlo Scarpa.
Accentuated joints, nice contrasts between old and new, beauty in bare materials, and level changes are all details in the Querini Stampalia foundation that are common in Scarpa”s work.
The exterior details in the rear garden create contrast in beauty in the same way they do in the interior.
This is an analytique-style detail representation exercise. There is a bump-out in a glass window wall that separates the original entry hall from a long corridor that leads to the hall to the garden. Upon walking towards this bump-out, it looks like a non-utilitarian feature to break down the scale of what would have been a straight, sleek glass plane. The orthogonal peeling away of concrete from glass behind it creates a decorated look that is characteristic if Scarpa. However, upon walking through a door in the glass wall, if one looks closeley, they can see a pair of radiators tucked into these bumpouts. Many times utilitarian features such as these radiators are hard to locate in a design, because they are hard to hide, and equally hard to showcase. Sometimes they are placed in inefficient locations, which end up requiring a larger number or size. The bumpout is a “double functioning element” in that it hides the radiators, and breaks down the scale of the glass wall.
Michael Dobkin 