Title

Casa Balboni

Excerpt

Date

Who: Carlo Scarpa

When: 1964-74

Where: Venezia

Casa Balboni is one of Scarpa's perhaps lesser-known houses. Located in a magnificent position on the Grand Canal at the height of the Accademia, it is a two-story, lengthwise house. Often Venetian houses on lower floors are not very bright, but this is not the case with Casa Balboni: its large openings toward the Grand Canal (which it also overlooks with a magnificent terrace) and toward an internal vegetated courtyard make it very bright, even in its mainly longitudinal development and despite its depth. Indeed, one can say that this house is built of light alone, which reverberates and reflects on the stuccoed and polished surfaces shaped like a continuous and organic sculpture. Matter and light become one material that, indeed, makes this place look as if it were made of a luminous matter.

In fact, it can be said that this house is built of light alone, which reverberates and reflects on the stuccoed and polished surfaces, modelled like a continuous and organic sculpture. Matter and light become a single material that, indeed, makes this place seem to be made of a luminous matter.  

EN