Carlo Scarpa

The Venetian artist Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) was one of the outstanding architects of the twentieth century, and at the same time a convinced lone wolf who saw his discipline as a form of art based on craftsmanship. In addition to buildings for museums in Venice, Florence and Verona his principal works also include the tomb of the businessman Giuseppe Brion in San Vito d'Altivole (Treviso). Here Carlo Scarpa had complete freedom to orchestrate a grand idea across an area of 2,200 square metres. Water, earth, light and air fuse with the buildings in fair-faced concrete (burial place, pavilion and chapel) to create a magnificent gesamtkunstwerk that invites the visitor to meditation. Seven years after the completion of the 'Tomba Brion', the famous Munich photographer of architecture Klaus Kinold had the opportunity to examine this remarkable tomb in photographs. His carefully considered pictures in black and white or subtle colours describe an other-worldly place which translates our ideas of growth and decay in an expansively constructed symbolism.