Scarpa corners are sharp corners

[Thursday 6 November]

Oh, hang on, haven't we seen this one somewhere else?

I've started to work on a typology of corners, following Tuesday's tutorial. Scarpa's are, of course, nice (as shown in this essay, quoted below):

"...the solidity and neutrality of the double height cubic viewing room is broken at the corners with corner windows of two kinds; at one end he intensifies the corner with cubic windows that are external to the building--they sit on top of the wall and ceiling generating direction to the outside, while the two at the other end are rectangularly three dimensional and are recessed; the effect of

them being recessed challenges the edge definition of the solid allowing the outside to enter in.

Similarly, in the Gypsoteca in Possagno, Scarpa reinforces this inside/outside relationship with corner windows in the double height gallery--however, where Frank Lloyd Wright would probably uniformly treat all corners the same way--Scarpa reverses two of the windows literally making note ofthe outside coming in. The end glass wall is another example of this inside/outside reading: the glass visually asks one to go beyond the edge definition and read the outside as an extension of the inside.

Corner cutouts is a device frequently used in much of Scarpa's work. One might say he intensifies corners by giving them a direction or, it might be said he challenges the reading of the object-like quality of the volume, by giving it direction and thereby uniting it with its surroundings. I think they mean the  same thing. I spoke of reversing Classical treatment before. This seems to be another example of this reversal. Rather than making corners, junctures, or connections positive, by embellishing them with a positive solid (as a capital, cornice, pedestal, etc., exemplifies) he creates a negative space which accomplishes the same objective. It intensifies the juncture. This can be seen at the right end corner of the viaduct where it is embellished with a change in material shaped into a cube with one quarter of it cut out. The same change of material can be seen in that which it meets.

The disintegration of an edge definition is accomplished in three ways: the extension of inside to outside, the bringing of outside to inside, and the more complicated act of having both occur at once. Scarpa used three dimensional windows to accomplish the first two. In the double height gallery space on the west side of the addition, Scarpa used two different kinds of windows to not only dissolve the corners at roof level, but intensified these corners by giving them direction. (Fig. #53) On the east side of this cube-like space, he put cubic glass windows which sit on top and outside of the roof and wall which effectively generates a diagonal direction to the outside from the inside (Fig. #52) (as these cubic windows protrude outside the roof and wall edge). On the west edge of this cubic room, Scarpa used rectangularly three dimensional windows which invert, cutting the dimension of the walls in half, and literally bringing the outside in."