From 1 May to 19 October 2025, the Museo Correr in Venice presents an exhibition focused on the display Carlo Scarpa designed for the museum between 1953 and 1960. Curated by Chiara Squarcina and Andrea Bellieni, the exhibition brings together archival photographs and original furnishings to reconstruct those interventions. It forms part of a wider program of restoration and reinstallation across the museum’s galleries.
Scarpa worked on two levels of the Correr, both housed in the Procuratie Nuove facing Piazza San Marco: the first floor, dedicated to Venetian history, and the second, home to the picture gallery.
In both cases, he applied a method that would become a reference point for postwar exhibition design in Italy. His approach combined a careful reading of the historical architecture with the introduction of new elements, establishing a clear and considered relationship between the works, the space, and the visitor.
Scarpa’s first intervention, in 1953, focused on a series of galleries on the first floor that had been closed for years following the war. He retained the original architecture with minimal alteration: white walls, timber ceilings, and intact proportions.
To these rooms he added furnishings designed specifically for the museum, using simple materials shaped with the precision that defines much of his work. Display cases, panels, and mounts were developed in response to the objects on view: senatorial robes, banners, Ottoman shields, portraits, naval lanterns, through a series of technical solutions aimed at improving clarity and legibility.
The second intervention, carried out between 1959 and 1960, offered greater scope for experimentation. The picture gallery lacked an existing display structure, and Scarpa approached it as a near-complete construction. He finished the walls with smooth lime plaster, introduced industrial Venetian blinds to control natural light, and designed new circulation paths along with new ways of presenting the paintings.
The most recognisable element from this installation is the metal easel, used to hold works at a distance from the wall and angled toward the light, treating them as spatial objects rather than surface images.
Alongside the metal easels, Scarpa’s installation included rooms built around individual works. A space lined in travertine was dedicated to Dead Christ Supported by Angels by Antonello da Messina. Two smaller rooms displayed Cosmè Tura’s Pietà and Carpaccio’s Two Venetian Ladies.
The materials used,iron, wood, glass, and stone, were typical of Scarpa’s architectural language, adapted to suit the needs of a museum. They were solid, understated, and carefully finished. The furnishings were made by local artisans, following a process in which technical skill and design were closely connected. Drawing and making were part of the same act.
The exhibition does not aim to present Scarpa’s work as a whole, but to focus on a specific moment and a particular way of designing for the museum.
It reflects on questions that remain relevant: how to display objects of different origins and scales, how to emphasise works without isolating them, how to bring together historical context and contemporary spatial thinking.
The exhibition also documents the current condition of the original furnishings. Some remain in their intended positions, while others have been altered over time. This presentation is also part of a larger effort that includes the restoration of the first floor galleries and ongoing maintenance of those on the second.
Title: Carlo Scarpa at the Correr 1953–1960
Venue: Museo Correr, Piazza San Marco 52, Venice
Dates: 1 May to 19 October 2025
Curators: Chiara Squarcina, Andrea Bellieni
Website: correr.visitmuve.it
