ORNAMENT AND FUNCTION : A STUDY OF THE BRION CEMETERY DESIGNED BY CARLO SCARPA

Abstract

One of the most defining changes in our built environment during the last century has been the systematic extraction of ornament from architecture, its temporary disappearance under the rationality of the modern movement and its revitalization under different guises, semiotically in the postmodern movement and most often technologically in contemporary architectural practice.

This dissertation proposes to see the work of Carlo Scarpa as essential in overcoming this lack of continuity in the history of ornament. Operating in the unstable milieu that characterised the transition between the modern and postmodern period, Scarpa was working with craftsmen to produce an ornamented architecture rich in signification. Underlying the design of his ornaments however, was their genesis in specific architectural functions.

The Brion cemetery designed in the final years of Scarpa’s life with its complex interplay between architecture, landscape and detail, will be used to illustrate his ability to design ornament which simultaneously reflected its use, construction, history and tradition, their fusion allowing him to create a poetic architecture that treads that fine line between beauty and kitsch.