The fires in the glass furnaces on Murano have been stoked for eight centuries. It is natural that the Venetian craftsmen with their artistic lineage that dates from the 13th century would have a deep affinity for glass. Apprehensive about potential fires and the unlawful sharing of professional secrets, all glassmaking moved to Murano by 1271.

The discoveries were astounding; gold leaf graffito, crystal, lattimo milk glass, filigree, incalmo, mirrors. millefiore, reading glasses – all put into production on Murano with attendant patents by the middle of the 16th century.

When “the arse of your pants falls out, you just use safety pins.” John Lydon (Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) remembers the primary advantage of safety pins. He had no money and didn’t know how to sew.

It was the seventies, and punks were the disenfranchised, bitter and poor kids of London and New York. They would show up with paint splattered clothing, garbage bags cinched at the waist, hacked off hair, safety pins piercing skin and cloth. Their ideology allowed for the remarkable notion that they could dictate their own taste, no matter how subversive. They wore their discontent on their sleeves.

In Robert McCarter’s Carlo Scarpa monograph Austrian architect Peter Noever tells an illuminating tale. In 1974 he and Scarpa visited the Adolf Loos-designed American Bar in Vienna. The moment they entered Scarpa started appraising the space. He ordered champagne for the ladies……who were present and a measuring tape for himself. Scarpa then proceeded to measure everything down to the exact millimeter. When finished he proclaimed the space to be of “singular spiritual and emotional quality.”

This is exactly how I imagine McCarter studying the work of the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa—measuring tape in hand. In this substantial volume, McCarter leads us by the hand through Scarpa’s achievements. He gives us a survey that is both vast, and in the spirit of Scarpa, meticulously detailed.

“On a spring evening in 1972 I was introduced to the person who would change my life.” Cleto Munari remembers the meeting well. It took place in Vicenza, the Palladian city north of Venice, where both he and Carlo Scarpa worked. In Scarpa the architect, Munari found friend, teacher and collaborator.

Munari wanted his cutlery to be the “most beautiful in the world” and he felt Scarpa was the only one in Italy at that moment who could elevate something as utilitarian as a fork into a modern masterpiece.