JOSEF HOFFMANN – CARLO SCARPA
On the Sublime in Architecture
2006 brings the 50th anniversary of Josef Hoffmann’s death and the 100th anniversary of Carlo Scarpa’s birthday.
The MAK regards these anniversaries as an apt occasion for organizing an exhibition (29.05.–29.10.2006) in the Muzeum Rodný dům Josefa Hoffmanna, the Josef Hoffmann Museum in the house in Brtnice where the architect and designer was born, together with the Moravská galerie, Brno. This exhibition for the first time explores the influence of Josef Hoffmann’s (1870–1956) designs and buildings on the oeuvre of Carlo Scarpa (1906–1978), a relationship hitherto only vaguely indicated in architectural research.
The Sublime in Architecture
Inspirations from Josef Hoffmann's work
In his only lecture held in Vienna at the Academy of Fine Arts on 16 November 1976, Carlo Scarpa emphasized that his work was grounded upon Viennese modernist ideas: “I am deeply moved since the tradition of my studies has – also for reasons of geography – brought me into closer contact with Viennese modernism and its glorious names that come to mind immediately. The artist we knew best and held in highest regard was, of course, also the one published most in German language magazines such as ‘Moderne Bauformen’ and ‘Wasmuth.’ This man was Josef Hoffmann. Josef Hoffmann had a strongly developed sense of the decorative which the fine arts students also acquired (which reminds us of John Ruskin’s proposition that architecture is ornament). At heart, I am a Byzantine, and, basically, Josef Hoffmann has something of an oriental character too, in the sense a European may turn to the oriental. This might not be the right way to explain a phenomenon but those who know Josef Hoffmann’s expressive forms will certainly understand what I mean. It will not do any harm to laugh for a change when professors such as Hoffmann are putting on airs and begin to talk about serious, obscure and mysterious things. To tell the truth: I am an heir of the cultural tradition that goes back to Vittorio Emanuele II’s monument in Rome.”
His studies at the Venice Arts and Crafts College, from which he graduated in 1926, predestined Scarpa to critically explore Josef Hoffmann’s work.
[back]
On the Sublime in Architecture
2006 brings the 50th anniversary of Josef Hoffmann’s death and the 100th anniversary of Carlo Scarpa’s birthday.
The MAK regards these anniversaries as an apt occasion for organizing an exhibition (29.05.–29.10.2006) in the Muzeum Rodný dům Josefa Hoffmanna, the Josef Hoffmann Museum in the house in Brtnice where the architect and designer was born, together with the Moravská galerie, Brno. This exhibition for the first time explores the influence of Josef Hoffmann’s (1870–1956) designs and buildings on the oeuvre of Carlo Scarpa (1906–1978), a relationship hitherto only vaguely indicated in architectural research.
The Sublime in Architecture
The aesthetic concept of the sublime outlines the way in which Carlo Scarpa, even as a young architect, was inspired by Josef Hoffmann. Over decades, subtle traces of his studies of solutions to space and area design problems proposed by Josef Hoffmann can be detected in his work. In following a “modernist tradition” that does not deny the origins of architecture in craftmanship and classical structuring, Scarpa continued the path taken by Hoffmann in his best works with a series of autonomous masterpieces.
Josef Hoffmann: Design of a stand for laurel trees, 1907
Objects, drawings, written sources, and photographs of the main achievements of these two important 20th-century architects illustrate the creative appropriation of Josef Hoffmann’s work by Carlo Scarpa. The MAK has dedicated major exhibitions to both architects and owns significant parts of both artists’ estates of drawings, which have been published in catalogues. The presentation in Brtnice is aimed at revealing the impact of Hoffmann’s designs on Scarpa’s “special modernist approach.”
 Josef Hoffmann: Leather case, 1905, pencil on paper |
 Josef Hoffmann: Design of two chairs, 1906 |
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 Josef Hoffmann: Residence Sonja Knips, Vienna 1924-25 |
 Josef Hoffmann: Pavilion for the Venice Biennial 1934 |
Inspirations from Josef Hoffmann's work
In his only lecture held in Vienna at the Academy of Fine Arts on 16 November 1976, Carlo Scarpa emphasized that his work was grounded upon Viennese modernist ideas: “I am deeply moved since the tradition of my studies has – also for reasons of geography – brought me into closer contact with Viennese modernism and its glorious names that come to mind immediately. The artist we knew best and held in highest regard was, of course, also the one published most in German language magazines such as ‘Moderne Bauformen’ and ‘Wasmuth.’ This man was Josef Hoffmann. Josef Hoffmann had a strongly developed sense of the decorative which the fine arts students also acquired (which reminds us of John Ruskin’s proposition that architecture is ornament). At heart, I am a Byzantine, and, basically, Josef Hoffmann has something of an oriental character too, in the sense a European may turn to the oriental. This might not be the right way to explain a phenomenon but those who know Josef Hoffmann’s expressive forms will certainly understand what I mean. It will not do any harm to laugh for a change when professors such as Hoffmann are putting on airs and begin to talk about serious, obscure and mysterious things. To tell the truth: I am an heir of the cultural tradition that goes back to Vittorio Emanuele II’s monument in Rome.”
His studies at the Venice Arts and Crafts College, from which he graduated in 1926, predestined Scarpa to critically explore Josef Hoffmann’s work.
[back]
 Carlo Scarpa: Tomba Brion, S. Vito d'Altivole, 1970-78, model for the corner solution of the enclosure wall |
 Carlo Scarpa: Tomba Brion, S. Vito d'Altivole, 1970-78, corner solution of the enclosure wall |
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Unable to attract architectural commissions and thus out of necessity in the beginning, Scarpa, just like Hoffmann, discovered architecture by dedicating himself to objects of applied art and design. The two architects’ biographies reveal numerous parallels: both were successful exhibition architects, designed products, and, in a design process that comprised everything, furnished shops, apartments, as well as entire complexes of buildings which may be regarded as total art works today.
Parallels in Josef Hoffmann's and Carlo Scarpa's designs
As regards the aspect of drawing, Josef Hoffmann’s design practice is characterized by both continuity and inconsistencies. The economy of lines typical of Hoffmann’s drawings guarantees meticulousness in proportion and scale. For Hoffmann, grids are no constructive system but rather a framework for freehand drawing – what prevails is the “cult of the creative hand.” Generally, Hoffmann did neither use a T square or triangle nor rely on tracing paper like most architects. The freehand drawings on squared paper are frequently executed directly in (Indian) ink without any preparatory pencil sketches. That the architect used crayons and watercolors or washed his drafts often produced quite fascinating results. Drawings, however, are nothing but a basis for the craftsman’s realization process. “I want to see the things, there is nothing else I can trust … this is why I draw. Things only reveal themselves to me when I draw them” – thus Scarpa’s personal definition of the medium of drawing.
Drawing plays a more important role as an instrument of design in Carlo Scarpa’s oeuvre than in the work of other representatives of modernist architecture. On the one hand, this has to do with the involuntary breaks in his practice as a building architect; on the other, this preference stems from Scarpa’s background and his deeply felt association with the tradition of designing in the Italian arts and crafts since Renaissance times. His dedication to the medium of drawing endows his work with continuity. Drawing provides the expression and detailed precision that characterize his buildings, museum and exhibition designs, and objects. “His elucidating approaches evidence an understanding of space that is committed to the smallest units, strongly fragmented, and exposed to the dimension of time.” Scarpa’s drawings, blueprints, and models are documents of the close collaboration between himself and the craftsmen executing his plans. The architect’s expressive working drawings lack the austere purity of architectural drawings destined for presentations or for being sold. In the technique typical of him, he carefully prepared all parts of his designs. A first drawing aimed at understanding the issue at hand was followed by a correction of the draft, which was often done in crayon. Scarpa used different colors for correcting the blueprints and added handwritten comments to his drafts, making the dry copies come alive with his interventions.
 Carlo Scarpa: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, 1961-63, design of the service staircase door |
 Carlo Scarpa: Exhibition installation for the Department of Architecture of Venice University, draft, 1975 |
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 Carlo Scarpa: Tomba Brion, S. Vito d'Altivole, 1970-78 exterior view of the pavilion |
 Carlo Scarpa: Draft for the monument on the Piazza della Loggia, Brescia, 1975 |
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 Financed through the EU program Interreg III A Ö-CZ. |
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