The Katsura Imperial Villa in the Japan of Carlo Scarpa and Fernando Távora

Abstract

Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) and Fernando Távora (1923-2005) are key figures for understanding the architecture of Italy and Portugal in the second half of the twentieth century. The two architects are also linked by their shared interest in Japanese culture. Távora visited Japan in 1960; Scarpa in 1969, and again in 1978. They both visited the Katsura Imperial Villa. The drawings that Távora made at the time and the notes he took about the villa reveal a certain awe and fascination. Távora confirmed that all of the so-called Modern was there. The accounts of Scarpa’s visit to the villa show an almost religious and, at all times, contagious enthusiasm, which was confirmed by his son, Tobia Scarpa (b. 1935). The paper aims to compare Japan’s meanings and architecture in the works of Carlo Scarpa and Fernando Távora, based on their visits to Katsura Imperial Villa. It revisits the modernity of this seventeenth-century Japanese architectural masterpiece.