In 2025, Venice and Possagno pay tribute to Carlo Scarpa with two complementary exhibitions exploring the Venetian architect’s special relationship with the arts and his distinctive museographic approach. While in Venice “Il Correr di Carlo Scarpa 1953–1960” will focus on the study, documentation, and philological reconstruction of Scarpa’s post-war museum interventions at the Procuratie Nuove, “Carlo Scarpa and the Arts at the Biennale. Works and Glass from the Gemin Collection” in Possagno will delve into his creative partnership with the Venice Biennale, through artworks, glass pieces, and previously unseen archival materials. If the Venice exhibition highlights the methodological rigor and material sensitivity that have made Scarpa an undisputed reference in international museography, the Possagno show sheds light on his profound and ongoing dialogue with the world of the arts, revealing the decisive influence of the Biennale on his architectural language.

“Il Correr di Carlo Scarpa 1953–1960”

From May 1st to October 2025, the Museo Correr in Venice reopens a significant chapter of its history with an exhibition centred on Carlo Scarpa’s museographic approach. The project, which anticipates future renovation and maintenance work on both floors of the Correr, delves into two different phases of Scarpa’s intervention — the first in 1953 for the Venetian History rooms, and the second between 1959 and 1960 for the Picture Gallery — offering a critical reflection on his sensitive and innovative design approach. The exhibition aims to reconstruct the subtlety of a creative vision that, in both architecture and design, emphasized materiality and artisanal craftsmanship. It achieves this by showcasing photographs from the MUVE Photographic Archive alongside original elements from the museum’s display system: glass panels, showcases, supports, joints, fittings, and the iconic easels, which are essential devices in Scarpa’s visual grammar.

“The Correr of Carlo Scarpa 1953-1960” is more than a conservation effort: it is an invitation to explore Scarpa’s curatorial vision, an interpretative method that resonates with the architectural and environmental context without ever overpowering its history, where form and function coexist to generate a meaningful — and revealing — dialogue between the space and the artworks.

“Carlo Scarpa e le arti alla Biennale. Opere e vetri dalla Collezione Gemin”

Concurrently, from June 22, 2025, to January 11, 2026, the Museo Gypsotheca Antonio Canova in Possagno will host “Carlo Scarpa e le arti alla Biennale. Opere e vetri dalla Collezione Gemin”, curated by Mario Gemin and Orietta Lanzarini. This exhibition will retrace Scarpa’s forty-year relationship with the Venice Biennale, for which he designed numerous installations and architectural interventions, aiming to uncover the “cultural geography” that shaped his professional and personal development. 

The show will be structured into three sections: the first featuring a rich selection of works by artists such as Gustav Klimt, Paul Klee, Alberto Giacometti, and Giorgio Morandi – figures who significantly influenced Scarpa’s cultural world – from the private collection of Luciano Gemin, Scarpa’s pupil and collaborator. The second section will showcase Murano glass pieces created for M.V.M. Cappellin and Paolo Venini, illustrating Scarpa’s material experimentation with glass. Finally, the third section will present a series of previously unpublished drawings and three sculptures documenting his 1968 intervention at the Italian Pavilion, where Scarpa took on the rare of artist.

Exhibition: Il Correr di Carlo Scarpa 1953-1960 Location: Museo Correr, Venice, Italy Dates: from 1st May 2025 to 19th October 2025

Exhibition: Carlo Scarpa e le arti alla Biennale. Opere e vetri dalla Collezione Gemin Curated by:  Mario Gemin and Orietta Lanzarini Location: Museo Gypsotheca Antonio Canova, Possagno,  Italy Dates: from 22nd June 2025 to 11th January 2026