Carlo Scarpa. The House on the Grand Canal

A volume dedicated to the emblematic history of the house on Venice’s Canal Grande and how Carlo Scarpa achieved a boîte à miracle. Scarpa restored the house between 1964 and 1968 for Loredana Balboni, collector and art dealer, the widow of Francesco Pasinetti, director of the Experimental Centre of Cinematography in Rome and the sister of Letizia, the wife of Michelangelo Antonioni, who made it a meeting place for writers, artists and directors, from Paolini and Maselli, to Visconti and De Kooning and a veritable treasure chest of artworks, with masterpieces by Ernst, Viani, Tancredi and Bacon. The architect created an extraordinary luminous telescopic installation for the rooms and artworks that connects the front overlooking the garden of the house to that on the Grand Canal. He made use of stone materials modelled with extreme care and wall coverings by adopting traditional techniques and drawing on the work of the most gifted Venetian artisans. After the death of Loredana Balboni in 2008, the house passed to its new owner, who undertook the necessary restoration, conducting it as carefully as possible. The work completed made it possible to know every single aspect of the building, to bring out all the solutions used by Scarpa and restore the spaces to their admirable brightness and transparency.
The emblematic history of Casa Balboni is revealed by Roberta Martinis on the basis of accurate archival research, leading to the publication of many previously unknown drawings, while Francesco Magnani and Trudy Pelzel, drawing on extensive photographic documentation, explain how they restored it.

English edition. Translation by Richard Sadleir.