Between 1953 and 1978, the Italian architect Carlo Scarpa (1906–1978) produced an incredibly varied range of works that challenge our notions of what modern architecture might be. Foremost in that work was the need to reconcile a wholehearted embrace of the new with the longstanding traditions of local craft and of universal practice—to create an architecture that would clearly express its own machine-driven times without abandoning the psychic and sensual forces of place, materiality, and memory.

The eight projects presented in this book are expressions of Scarpa’s discipline, but above all they demonstrate his relentless concern with context in its broadest sense: time past, present, and future; the common sense of a place and the careful reading of its visual character; the methodological traditions of design; and artisanal techniques in building. Carlo Scarpa, Architect illustrates, through abundant reproductions of Scarpa’s drawings, the ways the architect created a dialogue with light, space, and architecture within the historic fabric of Italian cities. Presenting these projects as they exist today, the patient eye of contemporary photographer Guido Guidi deepens our understanding of this timely approach to architectural dialogue and makes discoveries about the process of design.

Essays by Jean-François Bédard, Alba Di Lieto, Mildred Friedman, Guido Guidi, Nicholas Olsberg, Sergio Polano, and George Ranalli
Photographs by Guido Guidi
Graphic design by Glenn Goluska

Published in French as Carlo Scarpa, architecte : Composer avec l’histoire
Co-published with The Monacelli Press
Softcover, 255 pages