From the early 1960s architect Carlo Scarpa (1906–1978) helped transform the ground floor and courtyard of This 16th-century Palazzo Querini Stampalia to the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, a museum and cultural Association between St. Mark’s Basilica and the Rialto Bridge in the heart of Venice, Italy. In previous years the base had occupied the building, but flood of the earth floor meant the spaces that there could not be used to their entire scope. Scarpa’s interventions helped maintain the building usable and also an important cultural complex in town.
About three excursions to Venice, I have seen the building three times, but the latest trip was the first once the courtyard was available. This ideabook files my trip to the ground floor, the courtyard and other parts of the building. Scarpa has been a master of producing magnificent details, as you’ll see.
John Hill
Being in canal-rich Venice, the Querini Stampalia base is accessed by bridge. (In recent decades, the entry shifted from a Scarpa-designed bridge to a different one on the opposite side of the building). A glance from across the canal reveals the major spaces in Scarpa’s transformation: the entry space behind the gates, the exhibition hall outside and the courtyard in the rear.
John Hill
Access from the bridge means that people move through the entrance sequence differently now. The distance from where this picture was taken was formerly a dead end — an exhibition space that has been permitted to flood throughout the greatest waters. Now it is the primary access from the ticketing booth and the bookstore to Scarpa’s ground-floor spaces and the upstairs library and museum.
John Hill
Scarpa’s treatment of the room behind the two gates is genuinely remarkable. Does his layout nevertheless allow water within the building (not uncommon in Venice), but it celebrates the water by means of a succession of steps at several heights and also a cantilevered border on the raised walkway. The walkway’s surface actually contrasts with the high-water line.
John Hill
Marking the transition between the entry hall and the exhibition space beyond is a glass wall emphasized by an enclosure. The complex articulation of the stone panels makes the enclosure seem to be for something particular, but in fact it simply covers a radiator.
John Hill
A closer look in the enclosure — awaiting the courtyard in the distance — provides a glimpse of the black radiator that functions the exhibition space. The entry hall is an interior space, inside the confines of the building but available to the elements, so this transition is in fact very important. In this regard, giving a lot of attention to the radiator enclosure makes much sense; it marks an important change within the realm of the ground floor.
John Hill
The exhibition hall appears fairly simple, but it consists of concrete, stone, metal and glass in an asymmetrical grid. The lines on the floor and the glass bits in the wall give the distance a rhythm toward the courtyard.
John Hill
A detail view of the wall illustrates how much attention Scarpa gave to the materials. The elegant travertine stone panels on the wall comparison with the rough concrete on the floor. The brass railing separating the 2 groups of travertine was created as a service for lighting fixtures; it certainly doesn’t seem as pragmatic as its objective.
John Hill
At 1 corner of the exhibition hall, a door opens to a distance that leads to the staircase. The form of the door recalls the radiator enclosure, meaning that Scarpa produced a world of details that he repeated to give consistency to the project. As we will see, that does happen again, but the tactic did not limit his saying.
John Hill
The courtyard is a beautiful space characterized partially by two neighbors, a brick wall covered in ivy. In this space Scarpa added a concrete wall to help define smaller areas (behind it is what’s now a café) and also to install distinct components inside the grassy courtyard.
John Hill
One of these elements is a tiny square pool with lily pads. It may seem odd to add water attributes to a courtyard in Venice, but given how Scarpa celebrated the canal’s water, so it is not surprising that he created this aquatic anchor from the backyard.
John Hill
From the cement walls, Scarpa also added a receptacle that collects rainwater. I see it also as a vase for flowers or for carrying other things. The mosaic line that goes across the cement wall is just another detail that Scarpa reiterated; it is observable around the swimming pool in the previous photograph, and we are going to see it later back inside.
John Hill
Yet another water element is found in the courtyard: a linear trough that visitors experience immediately when walking outside. The fountain is perpendicular to the concrete stripes in the hallway, the canal and also the entry walkway. While the overall motion is from front to rear — canal to courtyard — these perpendicular pieces make the motion more meandering than direct. Like the square pool, the fountain is covered in lily pads, but instead of a metallic enclosure it is all concrete.
John Hill
The head of the fountain is a lovely carved stone piece that makes the water trace a circuitous path before it goes on its own way.
John Hill
In the opposite end of the fountain, a scupper deposits the water into a round basin. This detail recalls Japanese gardens with no derivative. While barely repeating design themes from other parts of the building, the dividing of the stone still seems to fit in with the whole.
I love to believe that the predominant motif is a L-shape profile — a balance of both different types of motion in the design — that are available regardless of formal details. Look at the first photograph in this ideabook to see an L-shape profile in the decorative patterning about the metal gates.
John Hill
One such L-shape profile occurs on a wall panel in what was traditionally the main entrance on the ground floor. Although this space has lost its importance in the general fluidity of the building’s promenade, details such as the board, the mosaic floor and the way the walkway is held back from the walls are still present and part of the encounter.
John Hill
The old principal entrance leads to the staircase and to access to the library and the museum upstairs.
The rebuilt portal exhibits Scarpa’s sensitivity together with older buildings. (He seemed to possess specialized in changing older buildings to new uses, given projects like this and Castelvecchio, a castle in Verona, Italy, transformed into a museum)
The architect did not mimic the old details, but he respected them in how he handled the finishes and the way he used the portal site as a transition to the upstairs areas.
John Hill
The last group of photographs focuses on details in the staircase. In this photo we can see three of them: the handrail supports, the opening for the light in the landing and the stairs.
The first two will be discussed soon, but notice the way the risers have a gap in the center. This may seem frivolous, but they draw attention to the fact that the treads and the risers sit on top of and facing the old stone staircase. The 20th-century stone pieces shield the 400-year-old steps.
John Hill
The steel handrail supports are still an intriguing detail, one that I believe is related to the treads. Instead of bringing down them, potentially landing on the new treads, Scarpa gave them a more Z shape (or can it be two L shapes?) To avert this. Hence the handrail is positioned over the tread, but the service is rooted in the old measure, calling attention to the gap between old and new. Similarly, the new wall panels stop short of the treads, revealing the older walls.
John Hill
In the landing, marking the entry to the library, is a round light fixture. Below it is a ceiling using a double-circle cutout, a layout that resembles a single mobile mutating, as though the light has begun to divide into 2.
John Hill
Halfway up to the library is just another light fixture, square rather than round yet picking up on an identical paired theme.
John Hill
This last detail is a view of the landing as the stair turns 90 degrees. This flip is celebrated via the round notch that occurs in the junction of the borders of the tread and the landing. The detail is a version on the square top found from the radiator enclosure. Many people probably wouldn’t notice this stair depth (I did not notice it before going back down the staircase), but it reveals how no detail was too small for Scarpa; they were significant.