The photographs take the viewer through visible and invisible layers letting the changing light unfold with its reflections and reverberations of passing time. After crossing the village’s cemetery, we access Scarpa’s intervention through the propylaea looking through the opening created by two interlocking circles. These circles are lined with pink and blue Murano glass tiles. Their geometry represents Christian iconography and acts as symbol of the intimate connection of Onorina and Giuseppe Brion. During the beginning of the photographic journey, we at times seem to look over our shoulders, back to where the different textures of the old and new cemetery coexist. Our gaze travels across the foreground beyond the walls, and back. Unexpected details appear – symbolic and beautiful, speaking of tectonic relations and spiritualism. The photographic journey in this issue reveals several relationships: details in the foreground embedded in the surrounding elements and landscape beyond. Photographed in the late fall of 2022 after an extensive restoration project completed that same year by the Italian architect Guido Pietropoli, the rejuvenated landscaping accompanies the repaired architecture. A sense of acute focus comes with the photographs, a careful scan of the site’s textures. One can observe traces of recent rain on the surfaces of the concrete walls – faint and dissipating but adding to the patterns of formwork and plaster. Water is one of the main elements of communication throughout this project. Scarpa implemented a “spring” that starts outside the area of the arcosolium and leads into a canal that ends at the dark pool in the north of the site where the water pavilion is located. The water pavilion is present through its details, a column, and the inside of the pavilion’s roof that encloses the visitor and restricts the view for a possible moment of reflection. The photographic journey continues with the arcosolium, under which the two coffins lean towards each other in the distance, covered and protected by a concrete arch. The arch is composed of four concrete ribs, two lateral wings, and a heavy-looking extension, visually anchoring it to the land. From the acrosolium’s base, the surrounding Asolo Hills become visible in the distance, beyond the enclosing walls. The cypresses symbolize everlasting life. The image sequence ends at the chapel with its rhythm of vertical and horizontal concrete elements that may be reminiscent of the fluted columns of Greek temples. (5) The openings create geometries of light inside the chapel, blurring the boundaries between inside and outside resulting in a sacred space. Throughout the series of photos, the syncopated concrete architecture of the chapel and its stepped shapes appears light and ephemeral – yet well-grounded and inseparable from the earth.
1 Valery, P. (1922). “The Graveyard by the Sea,” https://allpoetry.com/The- Graveyard-By-The-Sea, (accessed May 5), 2023. Carlo Scarpa refers to this quote by Valéry in a studio lecture at IUAV in Venice, Italy on Febuary 18, 1976 in: Semi, F. (2010). A Lezione Con Carlo Scarpa. 1. ed. Venezia: Cicero. p. 262
2 Pietropoli, G., Renai, E. and Zanarotti C. (2008). Carlo Scarpa : La Tomba Brion, Altivole: Comune di Altivole. p. 5
5 Zanchettin V. (2005). Carlo Scarpa: il complesso monumentale Brion (1. ed.). Regione del Veneto: Marsilio. p. 44
