15 Nov

“I say DETAIL, you say a small part that makes up a whole. But there is much more to me; I am detail, I am Whole. Don’t submit me to the triviality connected to the word part. Stop limiting me to corners, to handles or a step, and look beyond. I am not an object, I am an effect.”

In Carlo Scarpa’s work a detail transcends beyond a thing or a part, to the whole project, therefore directly affecting your experience of the space. In his addition to the Canova museum for example, the detail of pulling objects out of the wall and into the space, changing their axis, and altering the height from which the sculptures are viewed, changes the way we move in the museum. Likewise in the Brion tomb project, the use of materials and how they connect, the use of color, the filtering of light, and the careful placement of objects, are all details that come together to shape your experience. As you walk through the space, a step now suddenly makes you aware of your surroundings. When you enter a room, a corner detail can make you aware of the use of materials, how they behave, and how they meet. Details in this case become performative creating different moments and framing particular views. The viewer or visitor then turns out to be an active participant of the architecture, a player in the constant interaction between part and whole.