When in 1959, Giuseppe Mazzariol, Director of the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice, asked him to renovate part of the headquarter of the Foundation and its small and neglected garden, the architect created a raised lawn with rills, sculptures and few trees instead of the paved court with labyrinth and central pool that he had designed for it ten years before.
The original design was, in fact, dated 1949 and was part of the project to restore the antique palace with its art collections and precious library, legacy of the generous Count Giovanni Querini to the Venetians in 1869. The garden had never enjoyed much favour. The Count himself considered it a nuisance, a useless expense and a waste of time. Along the years, it had become a sort of outdoor deposit, after being used as vegetable garden. Financial problems delayed the beginning of the works that started just in 1959 and were completed with the inauguration in 1963.
Scarpa's approach returned the garden its dignity and a well defined role for the Foundation. He did not try to conceal its small size, rectangular shape, and incumbent boundary walls but exploited these aspects creating different volumes and walks. Shapes are clean and linear, simple parallelepipeds that form steps, planters, little canals and pools. He used concrete, marble and glass. The thin wall that separates one side of the garden from the cafe is made of concrete. Its monotonous and rough surface is broken by openings and brightened by a mosaic created by Mario De Luigi with Murano glass tiles, shaded from gold to grey and black. Elsewhere, this ribbon of glass becomes a stone path or a short channel fed by an alabaster sculpture. The water flows along the channel, beyond a small stone lion, into a small spiral pool and disappears in a ‘vera da pozzo’, the ancient wellhead. Water is enclosed in a square copper pool, surrounded by a larger concrete one decorated with a glass tile mosaic.
The use of these materials creates continuity with the ground floor rooms of which the garden becomes an extension: just a glass wall and four columns divide them. The lawn is reflected in the glass and through it you can see the canal on the other side of the palace. Water enters it. Scarpa solved the problem of the 'aqua alta' allowing the water to enter the ground floor from the nearby canal but following a set course, using water to light up and mirror patterns and surfaces. Effects that continue in the garden amplified by the changing natural light and the vegetation. A papyrus, a pomegranate and some flowering trees bring the seasons in the garden. Giuseppe Mazzariol added flowers and mediterranean plants but more recent restorations had simplified the plantations.
The garden is an essential and elegant space intended for rest and reading. When Scarpa eventually began the works, he was ten years older and more experienced, able to create a perfect harmony between nature and human intervention.
Photos:
TravelinaGarden, Venice, December 2014.
Link:
Fondazione Querini Stampalia
Castello 5252 - 30122 Venezia
http://www.querinistampalia.org/
Further reading:
Carlo Scarpa alla Querini Stampalia, text by Maura Manzelle, Venezia, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, 2012 (2003).
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