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Reinterpreting Venice: The Architecture of Carlo Scarpa 1906-1978

A talk with Richard Murphy, architect and lecturer, followed by a Q&A led by Valeria Carullo, Curator, RIBA

John-East-Scarpa-Venice-Gate

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Image credit: John East

Tuesday 27 January 2026

Lecture and Drinks Reception: 6.30-8pm

Tickets £20 to include drinks reception.

At Alan Baxter Gallery
70 Cowcross Street
London EC1M 6EJ

A Joint event with C20 Society

Carlo Scarpa was born in Venice in 1906 and lived half his life there, being educated at the Accademia di Belle Arti where he later taught. With two exceptions (in Palermo and Zurich) all his built projects are found in Venice or in the Veneto. When he died in 1978 there were no books on him. Today there are over sixty, a remarkable figure for a man who built comparatively little. In this talk, Richard Murphy, a practicing architect and authority on Carlo Scarpa, will ask firstly the question why was nothing substantial published in his lifetime? And secondly, why is there so much interest in him today? One of the strands of that enquiry must be his achievement in reinterpreting in a contemporary way the phenomenon of the city of his birth. In particular his projects at the Querini Stampalia, the Olivetti showroom and the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona.

Richard Murphy is a practicing architect, lecturer, and director of Richard Murphy Architects in Edinburgh. An authority on Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978), Murphy completed a comprehensive survey of Scarpa’s Castelvecchio Museum in Verona (1986-87), producing over eighty drawings—the only full record of the building. He curated exhibitions on Scarpa’s work and received a UK research grant to study Scarpa’s archives. His book Carlo Scarpa and Castelvecchio (1990) remains the definitive guide. Murphy also was the author of Phaidon’s Architecture in Detail volume on the Querini Stampalia (1993) and lectures worldwide on Scarpa. His expanded book Carlo Scarpa and Castelvecchio Revisited (2017; 2nd edition 2022; Italian edition 2024) has been hailed as “a masterpiece”.

Valeria Carullo is the curator at the Photographs Collection at RIBA and has led two C20 Veneto trips focusing on Carlo Scarpa.

Tickets open to Members only at present.

General ticket release on Wednesday 26th November.