Carlo Scarpa by Robert McCarter is the definitive monograph on the Italian modernist whose work continues to unsettle and reorient assumptions about what modern architecture can be — and how it should be experienced.
About This Book
No architect of the twentieth century treated material, light, and time with the precision of Carlo Scarpa. His buildings do not announce themselves — they reward sustained attention. McCarter, known for his meticulous, experientially grounded scholarship on key figures in modern architecture, brings that same discipline to this comprehensive survey. Where other monographs have touched on Scarpa's work, none has matched the breadth or depth achieved here. The result is an authoritative account of an architectural practice that resists easy categorisation — one that remains as formally alive today as when the buildings were first made.
Key Features
- 288 pages of scholarly analysis and documentation of Scarpa's built work
- Author: Robert McCarter
- Notable works examined include the Canova Museum, the Castelvecchio Museum, and the Brion Cemetery
- Published by Phaidon Press
What You'll Discover
- How Scarpa's architecture challenged accepted conventions of Italian and international modernism through material specificity and spatial sequencing
- A close reading of the Castelvecchio Museum as a masterwork of adaptive reuse — where intervention and existing fabric are held in productive tension
- The Brion Cemetery examined as a meditation on threshold, memory, and craft, connecting Scarpa's work to broader questions of ritual and place
- McCarter's jargon-free critical framework, grounded in direct experience of the buildings rather than theoretical abstraction
About the Author
Robert McCarter is celebrated for his meticulous, experientially based, and jargon-free accounts of key figures in modern architecture. His monographic approach prioritises direct engagement with built work, situating each architect's practice within a rigorous critical context.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 288
- Dimensions: 25.91 x 3.18 x 29.85 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781838662929
- Publisher: Phaidon Press
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects and designers with a serious interest in Italian modernism, material culture, and the craft of architectural intervention; students and academics studying twentieth-century European architecture; anyone seeking the most comprehensive critical study of Scarpa's practice available in print.