Carlo Scarpa: Classic format Hardcover – April 21, 2021

This book achieves where many architecture books fail: The text and photographs work together symbiotically. The author is particularly good at describing design in clear, precise sentences. The photographs illuminate his descriptions (or vice versa) and the book itself is finely printed and bound. The experience of the book becomes a sensuous echo of the buildings themselves.

My first reaction to the format of this book, while not as severe as B.Olson's critique below, was to be taken aback by Olson's same observations. Yet on spending time with the book, I quickly not only got accustomed to its quirks, but came to appreciate them in the context of the subject. In other words, what at first seemed overly mannered (not just the odd but in practice relatively workable spine/hinge, nor the also odd but, in readings, content-enhancing bold print, but oddities such as indenting the first two lines of paragraphs) I came to see in compelling ways making deference to an architect whose work is so profound that, as author Robert McCarter makes poignantly clear, it defies academic, formal explication.Since discovering him forty years ago I have bought and have read every word I could find in English on Carlo Scarpa, and partly due to the aforementioned opacity of the work stated by McCarter was skeptical of yet another treatise on him, by an architect/historian who I had not heard of. But from the first few pages I was absorbed in McCarter's knowledge, research, and crystal insights into this mystical opacity. (Opacity in Scarpa's instance being far from pejorative, but a gift for anyone who will approach the architecture with a sense of history, mind and heart.)McCarter serves Scarpa well, and has given at least this longtime student of The Master a wonderful gift.(P.S. to B. Olson: though I am as stated above not unsympathetic to your criticisms of the physical book itself, I would urge you to reconsider giving McCarter's work a one star rating, which at first glance - one of the misfortunes of the Amazon rating system - gives the casual reader of the reviews a negative view of a work of scholarship that you seem to in fact admire.)

great photos of genius's work, who's very underappreciated by the public

I love this architect...so I may be biased. This is a great book for those who what to look at some of Scarpas greatest work "holistically" (as best possible in text and images). You go to touch he's work not just to see or read about it.

An in depth look at Scarpa's projects, with insightful analysis and marvelous photography.

A must have for any Scarpa enthusiast. Excellent writing and photography of projects designed by one of modernism's most unappreciated heroes.That said, the design of the book itself is a horror. The terrible spine/hinge design does not allow the book to open flat and actually tends to want to self-close the book, and so you end up spending your time fighting with the book instead of reading it. Reading it is also a chore as any quoted text is bold, large and a different font from the main text which is gray.In the end, the overall book design is a completely self-indulgent trainwreck that really and truly interferes with trying to read it.

This was my husband's Christmas present and he loves it. My stepdaughter also spent a lot of time reading it while she was here.Quick shipment, excellent merchandise.

Excellent