Brion tomb
Memoriale Brion
Interesting facts
- Scarpa is said to have been buried standing upright and wrapped in linen, in the manner of a medieval knight, under a headstone designed by his son Tobia.
- The commission began as a plot of a few dozen square metres and grew, as Scarpa's ideas expanded, into a complex of about 2,000 square metres.
- Giuseppe and Onorina Brion's sarcophagi lean slightly towards each other, so that the couple seem to gaze at one another beneath the arch.
- The underside of the arcosolium is lined with blue and green glass tiles laid over a layer of gold leaf.
- Murano glass tiles, ebony inlays, brass and bronze are set directly into the concrete, so the raw walls carry fine craftsman's detail.
- The roof of the meditation pavilion is built of metal, larch wood and marine plywood.
- Steps recur everywhere in the complex: stairs that climb, descend into water or are moulded into the concrete walls themselves.
- In 2022 it stood in for the Emperor's palace on Kaitain in Denis Villeneuve's film Dune: Part Two.
- Scarpa never saw the work fully finished: he fell down a concrete stairway in Sendai and died ten days later, aged 72.
Why it is worth it
At the edge of a village cemetery in the Veneto countryside, Carlo Scarpa built a garden for the dead that has become one of the most admired works of twentieth-century architecture. The Brion Tomb, in San Vito d'Altivole near Treviso, is an L-shaped enclosure of some 2,000 square metres wrapped around the corner of the old cemetery, where concrete walls lean inward, water runs in channels and pools, and every step reveals a carefully framed view.
The commission came in 1969 from Onorina Tomasin-Brion, widow of Giuseppe Brion, founder of the electronics company Brionvega, who wanted a memorial for her husband. Scarpa worked on it from 1969 until his death in 1978. The visitor enters through a propylaeum whose wall is pierced by two interlocking circles, edged in blue and pink mosaic, a form that recalls the vesica piscis, a motif Scarpa used again and again. At the heart of the complex an arcosolium, a low curved arch like a bridge, shelters the sarcophagi of Giuseppe and Onorina. A small cubic chapel with stepped concrete forms stands in a pool of water, and a separate covered tomb holds other members of the family. A meditation pavilion, reached by its own entrance, seems to hover over a water basin; the rest of the site is lawn and a dense grove of cypresses.
The design draws on two worlds that shaped Scarpa: Venice, seen in the gold mosaic tiles that recall Byzantine work, and Japan, which inspired the tea-room character of the chapel. Born in Venice in 1906, Scarpa was known above all for his museums and interiors, among them the Castelvecchio in Verona and the Querini Stampalia foundation in Venice. He died in Sendai, Japan, in 1978 after a fall, and in keeping with his belief that the place of the dead is a garden, he was buried in an isolated corner of the Brion Tomb. A restoration was completed in 2021, and in 2022 the Brion heirs gave the site to the Italian National Trust, the FAI.
Getting there
The tomb lies in the cemetery of San Vito, a hamlet of Altivole in the province of Treviso. The nearest town is Castelfranco Veneto, about 9 km away. The nearest airport is Treviso Airport (TSF), about 25 km away.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Villa Barbaro 8.3 km · manor-house
- Ponte Vecchio, Bassano 14.3 km · covered-bridge
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Brion tomb, also known as the Brion sanctuary and Brion-Vega tomb, in San Vito d'Altivole near Treviso, Italy, is the burial ground of the Brion family. It was designed by Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa between 1968–1978 as an L-shaped 2,000 m2 (22,000 sq ft) extension to the adjacent municipal cemetery. It is regarded as a masterpiece of post-modernist architecture and a powerful commemorative monument.
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