Robert McCarter

In our FREESPACE manifesto, we discuss: freedom to imagine the freespace of time and memory, binding past, present and future together, building on inherited cultural layers, weaving the archaic with the contemporary. We review the past by means of buildings that were actually constructed, but it is also possible to view the past through cultural layers of architectural propositions, which did not become realities.
Robert McCarter is an architect and academic who has written extensively on Scarpa, Kahn, Wright, and other architects. In 1972, Carlo Scarpa curated and designed for the 36th International Art Exhibition Quattro progetti per Venezia, which presented projects by masters of modern architecture: The Masieri Memorial by Frank Lloyd Wright; the Venice Hospital by Le Corbusier; the Palazzo dei Congressi by Louis Kahn; and a park between the sea and lagoon at Jesolo by the Japanese-American sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi.
Each of these projects had been proposed for Venice between 1953 and 1970 but none were built. At a global level, how do we inform our attitudes in relation to historic urban environments? The passage of time allows us the distance to assess and evaluate decisions made, learning lessons from the experiences of others. After forty-six years, McCarter re-presents Carlo Scarpa’s 1972 exhibition of these works in Venice.
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