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Reflections on the Immaterial: The iconography of water and light in Carlo Scarpa’s Brion Cemetery

Part 2 Dissertation 2017
Daniel Aubrey
 Birmingham City University | UK
Carlo Scarpa’s approach to designing Brion cemetery was as a garden elevated from its surroundings, an island of meadows, pools and heavy enclosures amid a sea of fields. An inverted Venice for the dead. It’s a tranquil garden that articulates a vivid iconography of an idea of life and death in Veneto. This dissertation will examine this iconography by looking at the tools used to achieve it, water and light.


Tutor(s)
Christian Frost
2017
Propylaea entrance to Brion Cemetery
Cemetery wall is set at eye height to frame a horizon, which lines up with the centre of the oculi
Meditation pavilion frames a borrowed landscape
A spring of water sprouts from below a bridge under which the sarcophagi of Giuseppe and Onorina Brion appear to float like two boats
Connections to the mainland, Venice and Brion cemetery
Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin, 1883
Bridge to a secluded grove of cypress trees, which hold classical significance as a symbol of death and echo Böcklin's painting
Brion cemetery chapel interior
A meadow leading to the chapel
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