Architecture in Conversion and the Work of Carlo Scarpa

Federica Goffi, Prakash Patel

$176

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd
03 December 2025

History of architecture

The work of Modernist architect Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) is exemplary of an in-between practice, which is neither architecture nor conservation, but rather, architecture in conversion, dependent upon time, weather, and tempo. This book discusses the notion of architecture in conversion, revealing it to be radically different from current conservation practices, and to entail more than a change of use. Scarpa’s work represents ‘a radical turn in how we see or understand something’.

The significance of time, weather and tempo within Scarpa’s work, as well as the influences of artists such as Man Ray and Emilio Vedova and composer Luigi Nono, are revealed through a close analysis of Scarpa’s drawings and details from key buildings and their histories of multiple authorship. The book examines drawing as central to Scarpa’s practice: in lieu of creating physical models, his muti-directional drawings foreshadow the orbital movements of digital modeling techniques.

Based on discussions with many of his collaborators, the book highlights Scarpa’s collaborative approach, as well as the importance of all senses in his architecture. The book concludes by introducing the notion of ‘unfinished architecture’, and by discussing various contemporary architects’ projects which follow Scarpa’s approach to conversion of buildings.

By: Federica Goffi
Photographs by: Prakash Patel
Imprint: Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 305mm, Width: 250mm, Spine: 20mm
ISBN: 9781848225565
ISBN 10: 1848225563
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 03 December 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Introduction: Architecture in Conversion. Part I: Time Sensing; Part II: Weather and Cyclical Architecture; Part III: Tempo and Allographic Architecture. The Plural Beginnings of Conversion. Bibliography. Index

Federica Goffi is a professor of architecture at the ASAU Carleton University, where she has taught since 2007. Goffi’s research concerns the renewal of buildings and questions the relationship between architecture and time. She authored Time Matter(s): Invention and Re-imagination in Built Conservation: The Unfinished Drawing and Building of St. Peter’s in the Vatican (Ashgate 2013). Prakash Patel is an American architectural photographer and architect. His work has been published in architectural journals and design media worldwide.

Reviews for Architecture in Conversion and the Work of Carlo Scarpa

'Goffi offers a rigorous, innovative, and inspiring contribution to the fields of architecture in conversion, restoration, and adaptive reuse, linking them to the multifaceted concept of time. The work of Carlo Scarpa, which embodies restoration, historical layering, and architectural innovation, is tied by the author to modern and contemporary experiences. Scholarly and visually compelling, it is beautifully illustrated with photographs by Patel.' - Alba Di Lieto, Politecnico di Milano; former Architect of the City Museums and Curator of the Carlo Scarpa Archive, Verona, Italy