17 Jan House-Studio Scatturin

Venice, Campo Sant’Angelo, Calle degli Avvocati 3709: here there is a space of 250 square meters that Carlo Scarpa, between 1961 and 1963, completely redesigned.

Looking at the photos of the interiors, you can grasp the intimate atmosphere of a place born to be inhabited, lived, but at the same time the poetic signature of the master, who also designed the furnishings, is indelible everywhere.

“We can say that the architecture that we would like to be poetry should be called harmony. Architecture is a very difficult language to understand – it is mysterious, unlike other arts, music in particular, more directly understandable “he said about ten years later during a lecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

The house-studio is presented as a rectangular space on several levels where, thanks to the transparency of the materials used, one environment always perceives something different from the next environment: “We no longer have very thick walls: we tend to extremely thick thin, we have even abolished the wall sometimes we say that all this is a spatial fact, but it is not at all, because the spatial value is difficult to say “. The ceilings and doors – all designed differently by Scarpa – help to differentiate the rooms, such as the color of the materials used: the brown of the stucco in the studio, the red, yellow, brown concrete of the main hall. A wardrobe staircase leads to the spiral entrance to the triangular roof terrace which offers a spectacular view of all of Venice. But the peculiarity of this studio house also lies in the person who lived there: the lawyer Lugi Scatturin. He was a great friend of Carlo Scarpa and has always saved him from the quarrels that often happened to him due to the envy of his colleagues. As a friend recalls, the lawyer was a delightful person, also an excellent cook. The house-studio is evidently imbued with the brilliant personality of the two friends, Scarpa and Scatturin, so much so that it continues to inspire other artists: in 2015 a collective exhibition of contemporary artists was organized in the space, curated by Geraldine Blais Zodo and Pier Paolo Pancotto, and titled “GENTLEMEN PLEASE ACCOMODATE”.