Paper Presented: The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Annual Meeting & Technology Conference, March 13-17, 1998, Cleveland, U.S.A.

By: Samia Rab, Ph.D.

This paper examines the re-design of Castelvecchio in Verona by the Italian architect Carlo Scarpa. An analysis of this project suggests that monuments may play an active role in the critical interpretation of regional history.

Scarpa's re-designing of Castelvecchio adapts a monument to the new use of a museum in which individual works of art are arranged to enrich the visitor's experience from both an artistic and historical viewpoint. His interventions create deliberate breaks between different historical parts of the building, each of which is designed to create an "authentic" historic experience. He rhythmically marks the different stages and layers that were added at different times in the history of Castelvecchio. It is in this way that he reveals the inherent discontinuity of time in his selective narration of Verona's past.

As visitors to the museum, we are directed towards an understanding of the multiple moments and the infinite voices of history. As we walk through the museum, we listen to Scarpa's narration of the diverse history of Verona, as he reads this history from the physical elements of Castelvecchio. A vital insight in Scarpa's Castelvecchio Museum is that extending the life of monuments can efface just as much history from memory as is left recorded in them. Monuments, in this scheme of thought, do not just represent and immortalize historical figures, political events, or architectural styles; they have an active figural significance for the present state of architecture.