Returning to the newly conserved Brion Memorial at San Vito d’Altivole, in Italy’s Veneto region, is unexpectedly rejuvenating. Built from 1969–78 as the final resting place for industrialist Giuseppe Brion, the memorial was commissioned by his wife, Onorina, and their son Ennio, who chose Carlo Scarpa (1906–78) for the project—a roughly half-acre, L-shaped addition to a public cemetery—largely because Giuseppe Brion had admired the designer’s work. Both men shared a deep appreciation for the history of the Veneto landscape, and so his family selected a site with a view of the Asolani Hills and the 13th-century fortress the Rocca di Asolo, and, on a clear day, the Dolomites in the distance.
Owing to the close proximity of another Scarpa work—his ingenious addition to the Gipsoteca canoviana at Possagno (1957)—as well as Andrea Palladio’s Villa di Maser, each a few minutes’ drive away, the memorial can be a lively place, chockablock with bused tourists and architecture students on study tours. Yet popularity and time have not been kind to this monument: blackened and spalling concrete, decayed wood, damaged or lost glass tiles, corroded copper piping, festering fascia and joints, loss of gold leaf and plaster finishes, a badly trampled lawn, and poorly situated plantings are just a few items from a substantially longer list that led to an extensive multiyear conservation project.
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