Carlo Scarpa and Strange Details

Typological Borrowing. Perhaps the boldest approach of the Hof Eisen Siedlung designers is the borrowing from one of the typologies of historical architecture — the amphitheater — and its extension to the scale of urban design. This approach transforms architecture into a theatrical event. In this complex, the physical elements evoke the components of a classical amphitheater: the rows of apartments, gathered around the central green space, resemble special seats in a theatrical hall; the central pool plays the role of the stage; and the gentle slope of the grounds toward it assumes the role of the spectators' seating. In this arrangement, the correspondence between the position of the urban street and that of the amphitheater's backstage, and the correspondence between the complex's main entrance and the actors' passage to the stage, constitute the project's most brilliant spatial device. The audience is no longer merely a spectator but an actor who has an active presence in the spatial act and contributes to shaping the performance (Figure 11).