bitchin' bifocals

Double Vision

Carlo Scarpa’s intervention of ca’foscari:

The Mario Baratto Great Hall     

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By: Maxime Whaite , Dihua Wei and Laurie Bouchard

Scarpa’s Ca’foscari is his first step in establishing his legacy as a master of craftsmanship and restoration. Ca’foscari, now a university, was initially a palace built in 1453 by the Doge Francesco Foscari in the Venetian gothic style. His intervention in 1936 reinterpreted the gothic polifora of the loggia by the addition of new windows.

Scarpa’s sensitive approach to restoration is what makes his work so rich. Instead of simply repairing the building, he reconstitutes it by reiterating the past and present as a cohesive whole. He manipulates materials so their forms echo and magnify each other, as in his addition of the contemporary fenestration that responds to the harmonies and proportions of the gothic portals. He creates a sort of double vision, the gothic stone one and the contemporary glass and wood one, that merge to create a whole that is sensible to the insights of both his time and the past one.

Similarly, this simulacrum is the restoration of a pair of glasses from the 1930’s. A new frame is created by the connection of the metal allen keys with the old one. A double vision is thus induced by the interaction between the various frames. New and old qualities are independent yet enhance each other. Scarpa’s conversation between the past and present transcends issues of style; it addresses their fundamental qualities.

April 13, 2012

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