Castelvecchio Museum in Verona, Italy, originally a military fortress, has evolved through various transformations since its construction between 1354-1356, serving military purposes and later evolving into a museum by the 20th century. The museum underwent a major renovation led by architect Carlo Scarpa from 1958 to 1964, emphasizing a unique display approach and the historical significance of the artworks. The museum features a diverse collection of sculptures and artifacts while employing innovative spatial design to enhance the visitor experience.

1. Castelvecchio Museum,
Verona, Italy

2. Digital Model

4. CASTEL VECHHIO MUSEUM OF ART,
VERONA
old Scala family Castle.

5. The buildings sits on a site by the Adige river at the edge of the old city of Verona.

8. A journey through history
 It was built between 1354 and 1356 by order of Cangrande II della Scala, during
medieval Veronese period.
 In 1404, the city became part of the Venetian Republic. The castle was used
exclusively for military purposes, as a weapons and munitions warehouse.
 In the 18th century, it became Venetian military academy. In the 1797 revolt against
the French, Castelvecchio was used as a barracks
 The Napoleonic epoch marked the
beginning of a radical transformation
of the existing structure.
 This building, in neo-classical style,
continued to serve a military function
in the Austrian epoch.

9. Only after 1923 did the castle cease to serve an exclusively military function. It underwent
a dramatic structural change, following plans by Antonio Avena, director of the Civic
Museums, and the architect Ferdinando Forlati: the reconstruction of the swallowtail
battlements, the insertion of late Gothic and Renaissance decorative elements in the
facades.

10. Beginning in 1957, under the direction of Licisco Maganato a new organisation of the
entire building was planned, to restore the value of the notable historical and artistic
patrimonies.
The task of restoration and museum installation
was entrusted to the architect Carlo Scarpa,
whose highly original solution is universally
recognised as one of the finest examples of
museum renovation of post-war Italy.
The conversion by Scarpa was designed
and implemented between 1958 and 1964
Carlo Scarpa was an Italian architect, influenced
by the materials, landscape, and the history of
Venetian culture, and Japan.

11. Carlo Scarpa's legendary Brion-Vega Cemetery, Italy

12. Ottolenghi The Villa was designed by Carlo Scarpa
in the final stages of his career.

13. About Castelvecchio
Museum
It hosts a fine art gallery and
collections of ancient artifacts.
Castelvecchio boasts imposing
walls and vast towers which lend a
magnificence and sense of raw
power to the castle complex.

14. Castelvecchio fortress was a testament to the power of the Della Scala (Scaliger) family
who ruled Verona in the 13th and 14th centuries.

15. ABOUT RESTORATION WORK:

16. Castelvecchio art museum provides a foundation for a study of museum space as a
symbolic form.

17. The symbolic function of the museum bears on three aspects of spatial
arrangement:
-building layout,
-the positioning of displays within the layout, &
-the structure of occupiable space
By structuring the visual field, the patterns of accessibility, connection,
separation, sequencing and grouping characterize the arrangements of
displays
Exhibition layouts affect the manner in which displays are perceived,
compared, and cognitively

18. When Carlo Scarpa started his restoration work in Castelvecchio Museum, the old castle
had already gone through more than 700 years of alterations.
Having always been a military building, it had been rebuilt, modified, altered according to
different ages and needs.
In 1930, Antonio Avena, director of Verona museum, restored Castelvecchio, although
using a lot of "fantasy" in doing so. In particular he rebuilt the main facade using Venetian
gothic mullioned windows, coming from buildings destroyed in the 1882 flood.
"In Castelvecchio everything was fake" said Carlo Scarpa during a conference in which he
explained his project.
Carlo Scarpa then decided to state openly the falsity of Castelvecchio main facade making
it into a kind of stage set.

20. He left the main facade in gray rough concrete, with the door and windows frames
pulled back so that the gothic decorations look like the thin board of a theater stage set.
Carlo Scarpa placed the real entrance on the left side, half hidden by stone screens.

21. As you enter Castelvecchio Museum,
you realize the revolutionary display
approach of Carlo Scarpa. .
Here his ability in shaping materials,
light, spatial arrangements and colours
like an old artisan is evident.
Sculptures are placed on platforms
slightly raised above ground by a
central support, so that they seem
floating in the space.

22. The gothic sculptures in these rooms,
come from churches which were
destroyed by floods and earthquakes,
and were now out of their original
historical and architectural context.
With this floating effect, Scarpa wanted
to make them absolute objects. The
only tie to their original setting was
light, coming from one side of the room
as if inside an old gothic cathedral.

23. Inspired by Japanese architecture , the
opening on the floor showing various
centuries construction layers of
Castelvecchio.

24. Scarpa wanted to decontextualize and put
the work of arts in a neutral space.
The floor is made of a particular kind of
stone, with an opaque finish that absorbs
shadows.
The wall, with its particular raw finish also
reduces reflections so that sculptures,
paintings and the spectator too seem to
float in a space.

26. Spatial and expressive
relationships
between statues

27. The sculpture gallery comprises five rooms, the rooms are devoted to sculptures from
the early Christian and Romanesque periods through to the 14th and 15th centuries,
which originally stood in the basilicas of Verona.
The rooms are of a similar size, skewed square shape and axially connected into a
single linear sequence.

28. Sculptures are free standing in an apparently free arrangement, suggests no particular
viewing sequence or pattern of exploration.
At the threshold into the room, visitors have an overview of all the sculptures but do not
see any of them frontally

29. Arrows attached to statues represent their orientation

30. METAL STAIRS:
In order to access the tower, a stair needed to be
added.
But that stair could not pretend to be built in the
14th century – that would be dishonest.
And so the stair must instead be a subtle but
clear statement of the current time.
Each of the stairs in the Castelvecchio in an
experiment in materials to reconcile the clearly
new with the ancient.

32. METAL STAIRS:

33. CONCRETE STAIRS:
The loggia space is narrow and low with
a more private and intimate feel, which
justifies the tight stair as an appropriate
transition space.
Carlo scarpa, the architet, again forces a
very conscious experience of the stair
with the different angled treads.
Yet the angle and lengths still allow for a
natural movement through the stairs.

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