Project for Fondazione Querini Stampalia
In 1949 the Presidential Council of Fondazione Querini Stampalia decided to start the restoration of some parts of the Palace.
The director of the Foundation Manlio Dazzi commissioned Carlo Scarpa with the restoration of a part of the ground floor and the back garden, which were in very bad conditions.
The project was completed just ten years later thanks to Giuseppe Mazzariol, friend and supporter of the Venetian master.
Mazzariol wanted to improve the organization of cultural activities and reconstruct the entrance of the Palace by moving it onto the Campiello Querini Stampalia façade. He deemed the ground floor (and the back open area) unusable for exhibitions, congresses and other initiatives due to frequent seawater flooding.
The renovation works by Scarpa are based on a balanced combination of old and new elements, as well as on a great workmanship of the materials.
Water is the main character: it enters from the channel which the Palace overlooks through water gates along the inner walls. It is located in the garden, in a capacious many-leveled copper basin made of cement and mosaic and in a little channel with two labyrinths sculpted in alabaster and Istrian stone by the sides.
In the Querini Stampalia Palace the great master's work of the Italian architecture of the 20th century represents four themes: the bridge as the very light connecting arch completed in Venice in the last few centuries; the entrance with its safety bars from high level of water; the portego and the garden.
Between 2006 and 2008, the Carlo Scarpa Area was subject to a rigorous conservation effort.