Balboni House, Venice, 1964–74
In the late 1950s, Lordana Balboni inherited from her father an apartment occupying the two lower floors of a small building in Dorsoduro, near the Palazzo Contarini degli Scrigni, which had once had a lush garden before it and on the other side overlooked the Grand Canal. The exterior decorations that the architect Lodovico Cadorin had added a century earlier were still preserved. The owner, who at that time did not live in Venice, after the essential initial structural reinforcement in 1964, asked Scarpa to design a building that she envisioned would remain her second home. The design and construction stretched over eleven years. The agreement between patron and designer involved the participation of some of Scarpa's "traditional" collaborators: the engineer Carlo Maschietto, the painting and plastering firm De Luigi, the carpentry workshop of Capovilla, and Giovanni Soccol, who completed the work and added certain built-in furnishings and light fixtures that remain in use to this day. The result is a cohesive design whose principal characteristic is the spatial and perceptual unity across each of the apartment's two levels, between the western — entrance — side and the eastern facade overlooking the canal. This continuity is established across both levels, which are arranged in roughly the same manner and include two large, curved openings in the ceiling of the main corridor. Two sections projecting from the original structure into the garden lend a fresh spirit to the facade, reinforce the axiality of the entrance, and support a terrace accessible from the first floor. The semi-octagonal profile of the arched window accommodates a semi-Eastern-style room originally intended as a dining area. A refined ebony wardrobe stands on the opposite side of the corridor, beyond the passage leading to the study and kitchen. The lustrous ceiling reflects natural light down to the floor, which is clad in slabs of red Verona marble aggregate and white Lasa marble strips (instead of the Bolzano flagstone originally envisioned), continuing throughout
the living room. The terrace of this floor, elevated approximately seventy centimeters above the water level, is surfaced in Istrian stone. A wide, spiral staircase — also of Lasa marble — reinforced at the base by intersecting steps that produce a dramatic effect with references to natural forms, is enhanced further. The metal handrails, added for safety, were designed by Soccol, while the revolving sculptural piece atop the supporting column was crafted by Scarpa's artisans from the heartwood offcuts used in the house. (According to Lordana Balboni, 2006.) Before the first-floor bedrooms, small and entirely open resting alcoves are envisioned, opening onto the main corridor below, with double-layered sliding doors that enclose a smaller door within. The terrace overlooking the garden is enclosed by railings of cylindrical teak posts with bronze stanchions and fittings, similar to the memorial plaque at Piazza della Loggia, Brescia (1977). The bathrooms, which Scarpa initially wanted to overlook the canal, are set back from both facades and lined with varied pieces of white marble. As on the ground floor, the rounded wall edges, the perimeter railings, the absence of sharp edges between floor, walls, and ceiling, and the uniform cream-colored plaster of the wall surfaces all contribute to the fluidity of space and the quality of light — the distinctive hallmark of this Venetian house.
