ARCHITECT

CARLO SCARPA

PROJECT

BRION CEMETERY 1978

The Brion Cemetery (1968–1978) in San Vito d'Altivole near Treviso, Italy is a masterpiece of modernist architecture.


The Italian architect Carlo Scarpa (1906–1978) began designing this addition to an existing municipal cemetery in 1968. Although he continued to consider changes to the project, it was completed before his accidental death in 1978. The enclosure is a private burial ground for the Brion family, commissioned by Onorina Tomasi Brion, widow of the founder of the Brionvega company. Scarpa himself is buried adjacent to the Brion sanctuary. Several discrete elements comprise the Brion family burial site: a sloped concrete enclosing wall, two distinct entrances, a small chapel, two covered burial areas (the arcosolium for Giuseppe and Onorina Brion, and one for other family members), a dense grove of cypresses, a prato (lawn), and a private meditation/viewing pavilion, separated from the main prato by a separate and locked entrance, and a heavily vegetated reflecting pool.


The "viewing device" of the pavilion of meditation suggests a vesica piscis, a recurring motif in Scarpa's architecture.

source: Wikipedia