Brion-Vega Cemetery, Carlo Scarpa

Carlo Scarpa’s Brion-Vega cemetery, San Vito d’Altivole, Italy

(Image credit: press)

published 13 August 2008

One of Carlo Scarpa's most iconic and seminal built works (and a project so close to his heart that a space in it was saved for his own use) was the Brion family cemetery.

Scarpa (1906-1978) designed the Brion-Vega in San Vito d'Altivole, near Italy's Treviso, as an extension to the family's existing cemetery. The architect developed the geometrical concrete composition over a 10-year period, with works finally reaching completion in 1978.

The L-shaped plot includes a complex of five buildings; a small chapel, the entrance hall, a small steel-and-wood pavilion on an island in the site's water pond, the main tomb, and an open-air structure covering the graves.

Behind the scenes for W*114, August 2008

Aiming to create a poetic resting place as much as a sculptural memorial in a green, calming garden, Scarpa used well-thought-out design features; for example, the cemetery walls are not higher than the surrounding field's plants, discreetly merging the structure into the landscape.

Within the site, there is also a small island with no apparent access for visitors, which perhaps works as a metaphor for the afterlife.

The architect himself rests, vertically, in the cemetery walls, after passing away in 1978 during a trip to Japan – the same year that his last masterpiece was finished.

Scarpa also designed a pond for the L-shaped site

The open-air structure that covers the graves

Reflection of the main tomb in the cemetery's pond — Reflection of the main tomb in the cemetery’s pond

Detail of the geometric concrete masonry

The architect himself is buried within his masterpiece

Behind the scenes of our W*114 fashion shoot in Scarpa's Brion-Vega cemetery — Behind the scenes of our W*114 fashion shoot in Scarpa’s Brion-Vega cemetery

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).