Piano, Scarpa works exhibited in Prague - Features - The Prague Post
Piano, Scarpa works exhibited in Prague
Works of Italian design luminaries featured at Architecture Week Praha
Posted: October 26, 2011
By Filip Šenk - Staff Writer | Comments (0) | Post comment
Two of Italy's most renowned contemporary architects were each paid a small tribute at the fifth annual Architecture Week Praha, a two-week event celebrating some of the world's most prominent building designers.
Renzo Piano and the late Carlo Scarpa were featured on the second floor of Queen Anna's Summer Palace at Prague Castle as part of a collection of projects built across the globe over the past several years. The venue was a fitting one for Piano and Scarpa as the Summer Palace is considered the only true Italian Renaissance building north of the Alps, and its designer, 16th-century architect Paolo della Stella, was an Italian commissioned to create the structure for Ferdinand I and his wife Anna of Bohemia and Hungary in 1538.
The two-week design exposition, which ran Oct. 10-23, had exhibitions on display at several venues across the city featuring designers from around the world, but the careers of Italy's two most prominent architects were specially showcased in the form of career retrospectives rather than featuring individual projects.
Piano, the man behind the Marco della Musica in Rome, the New York Times Tower in New York City and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris - on which he collaborated with noted British architect Richard Rogers - is very likely Italy's most famous architect. Winner of his industry's highest honor, the Pritzker Architecture Prize, his designs are famed for walking the tight line between the pragmatic and the avant-garde.
A strong interest and appreciation for Italian interior design has led to the creation of the first-ever Italian Design Week in Prague.
When Nov. 21-25
Who Italian-Czech Chamber of Commerce, with the patronage of the Embassy of Italy in Prague
What A week of Italian design furniture and accessories with the latest collections, special discounts and workshops
Where 16 locations: interior design showrooms, stores and showrooms citywide
Why Showcase more than 50 Italian brands and designer companies represented in the Prague area
More Info Camic.cz
"One may not appreciate all of Renzo Piano's architecture, but no one can say he doesn't express the Italian creativity by spreading it all over the world," said Elena Svalduz of the University of Padua and one of the guest lecturers at Architecture Week.
Piano, the exhibit notes, established his Building Workshop (RPBW) in 1981 with offices in Genoa and Paris. Later, he also opened a branch in New York. Today, RPBW employs approximately 100 architects from all around the world and provides all kind of work and organization including interior design, urban planning, landscape and exhibition design.
Carlo Scarpa's work is introduced through a model of the monumental complex Brion in San Vito di Altivole in northern Italy. Scarpa, who died in 1978 at age 72, took inspiration from historic north Italian architecture, especially that from the region of Veneto, the firm land around Venice known for its monuments and villas. The region's most well-known villas were designed by Andrea Palladio, an early inspiration of Scarpa's.
"A villa is not simply a house," Svalduz said. "It is the key element of a civilization which designed the Veneto landscape."
While heavily influenced by Palladio, Scarpa's Brion complex - where he is buried - is something completely different. It contains buildings, large flowerbeds and water tanks creating a special place to honor the memory of Giuseppe Brion, exactly as his widow Onorina wished. Gray concrete meets with green grass making a silent and highly spiritual place.
Svalduz said the inclusion of Scarpa in Architecture Week was an easy decision because he is "one of the most important Italian figures of contemporary architecture history."
