In recent decades, Carlo Scarpas relevance has been steadily on the rise. At a time when architects have to use existing city and building structures as a point of departure for their work, his oeuvre remains a source of inspiration. Buildings such as the Castelvecchio in Verona show us that architecture is capable of communicating its own history, has meaning, and develops a contemporary dynamic of its own. Scarpas layered architecture makes visible the process of becoming and the time-related sedimentation of material and meanings. It is especially at points of transition and interface that layering becomes a narrative element that elucidates the tectonic qualities of the building. Overlaying includes leaving a record of how an object came into being -- either by means of the sediments of its history or through the intervention of the architect. In this book Anne-Catrin Schultz presents her research about the phenomenon of layering in Carlo Scarpas architecture. Layering describes the physical composition of layers defining space as well as the parallel presence of cultural referrals and formal associations imbedded in the physical layers. Scarpas work is an embodiment of multidimensional layering and, at the same time, a focal point for architectural movements of his time that have stratification as their theme.
